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Do Maquiladoras Herald Economic Recovery? Almost like shakes before the quake, changes in the production dynamic of border assembly plants can signal shifts in the economic landscape. Intimately tied to the US and global markets, the state of the maquiladora industry is frequently an indicator of things to come. For example, the downturn in maquila employment at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 preceded the economic crisis that shattered the world some months later. In Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, employment in the mainly foreign-owned factories dropped from 249,837 workers in January 2008 to 171,144 in September 2009. The 78,693 lost factory jobs accounted for a huge chunk of the 89,800 jobs that vanished in the border city during the same period, according to numbers from the Mexican Social Security Institute cited by the Maquiladora Association of Ciudad Juarez (AMAC). Apart from the world recession, Ciudad Juarez has experienced an undetermined amount of job losses because of the rampant insecurity plaguing the city. Benjamin Ojeda Flores, commerce director for the Chihuahua State Secretariat of Commercial and Tourism Development, said an estimated 3,000-3,500 businesses have shuttered their doors in Ciudad Juarez as a consequence of the twin-headed crisis. A local newspaper recently reported the stories of two men who said they lost their livelihoods due to the kidnappings of employers. One man, Jaime Portillo, said his family of seven was now trying to survive on his wife’s weekly earnings of about $47 from a Foxconn plant. If official unemployment numbers from Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI) are taken into account, Ciudad Juarez, a city with an estimated population of 1.3-1.5 million, has experienced a disproportionate share of joblessness in comparison with the rest of the country during the recession. In its most recent report, INEGI calculated that slightly more than one million jobs vanished in all of Mexico, a country of more than 110 million, from September 2008 to September 2009. Mexico’s official unemployment rate now stands at approximately 6.4 percent of the economically active population-the highest on record since the economic crash of 1995. But some industry observers and Ciudad Juarez officials now say the worst of the economic crisis in their bellwether city is over, as more and more signs of recovery appear. According to AMAC, the industry recovered at least 4,736 jobs during the third quarter of 2009. Spread around at least 32 maquiladoras, many of the jobs were in the key electronics, auto and medical sectors. AMAC President Soledad Maynez Bribiesca added that most factory production stoppages have ended. As many as two thousand additional jobs are expected to open up in Ciudad Juarez by year's end. What’s more, consumer appliance manufacturer Electrolux announced October 23 that it will shift more production to Ciudad Juarez in 2010 and 2011. Yet Ciudad Juarez’s job gains are sometimes losses for others. The Electrolux jobs, for instance, consist of positions that will be moved from company plants currently located in the Iowa towns of Webster City and Jefferson. Electrolux’s decision completed a production shift that began in 2006, when the Swedish-owned company announced 700 Iowa lay-offs in anticipation of the construction of its Ciudad Juarez facility. The move provoked anger among Iowa employees and residents. “We keep telling the legislators to stop sending our jobs to other countries, but nobody’s listening,” said 11-year Electrolux employee Connie Elliott. In 2006, Electrolux spokeswoman Blythe Reiss justified the Ciudad Juarez move as a necessary step to keep pace with competitors Whirlpool, GE and Maytag, all of which were selling products “made in Mexico or other low-cost countries.” Reiss contended her firm was committed to keeping the rest of its operation in Webster City but couldn’t “make promises about it.” Less than four years later, Electrolux executive Frank Warner called the pending Iowa shut-downs a “difficult but necessary decision.” Jane Adams, Webster City city council member, predicted the upcoming round of mass lay-offs will have a “big impact on Webster City and the surrounding communities.” On a related note, Alvaro Navarro Garate, director of financing promotion for the Ciudad Juarez municipal government, said an announcement will be made soon about a so-far unnamed Mexican-owned company that plans to move part of its production operations from the interior of the country to the border. “We have to keep promoting this type of thing so that Ciudad Juarez is seen by Mexicans as well as the north and global community as a place of opportunity to seek the US market.” Sources: Lapolaka.com, October 25, 2009. Norte, October 23 and 26, 2009. Articles by Antonio Rebolledo and Jesus Batista. El Diario de El Paso, October 24 and 25, 2009. Articles by Berenice Gaytan and Sandra Rodriguez Nieto. Desmoinesregister.com, October 24, 2009. Article by Jason Pulliam. La Jornada/Notimex/Reuters. October 21, 2009. The Messenger, February 17, 2006. Drug War Conference Convened On the front line of the so-called drug war, the border city of El Paso will be the site of what could be a lively, timely exchange of opinion and analysis of four decades of narcotics control strategies in the Americas. Convened by faculty from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), the September 21-22 gathering will feature presentations by academics, journalists, government officials, and members of non-governmental organizations. Attendees from as far away as Finland, Spain and the United Kingdom are expected to attend, said Dr. Kathleen Staudt, UTEP professor of political science and conference co-coordinator. Calling the upcoming meeting “a kind of a precedent-setting conference,” Staudt said that the aim of organizers was to bring together people with
diverse viewpoints to dissect and debate a 40-year-old substance control
policy that “hasn’t reduced drug consumption.” To consider the drug issue Continued drug prohibition, legalization and everything in between are likely to be hot topics of discussion in El Paso. Confirmed speakers include Mexican drug war expert Dr. Luis Astorga,
United States Drug Enforcement Administration intelligence chief Anthony
Placido, Chihuahua state lawmaker and rural activist Victor Quintana,
Ciudad Juarez history scholar Dr. Oscar Martinez, and National Public As part of the meeting, conference participants will take a short trip across the Rio Grande to neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, for a September 21 speech by Dr. Sergio Fajardo, former mayor of Medellin, Colombia. The mayors of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez have been invited to help deliver opening remarks to the conference. For Staudt and other UTEP professors, the drug war is not just an academic exercise. Located on a bluff overlooking Ciudad Juarez, UTEP has a bird’s eye view of the drug-fueled violence that’s claimed more than 3,100 lives in the Mexican border city since January 2008. An estimated 10-15 percent of the school’s students are commuters who live in Ciudad Juarez and travel back and forth across the border. In a phone interview with Frontera NorteSur, Staudt said that she sometimes asks her students to share direct experiences they have had with crime and violence. A student, she added, once related how family members had been car-jacked three times. Dr. Joe Heyman, conference co-coordinator and UTEP professor of
anthropology, told Frontera NorteSur that the tremendous escalation of
violence in El Paso’s sister city motivated faculty members to organize a
far-reaching public dialogue. “It’s a wake-up call to not only Mexico but The border specialist contended that drug cartels are a North American rather than just a Mexican phenomenon, and that criminal violence is also a real if largely hidden by-product of the drug business in the United States in addition to Mexico. The UTEP administration and the City of El Paso have been generous in helping support the event, Heyman said. The conference will end with a panel dedicated to discussing alternative strategies and policy proposals for the drug war. “What we want to do is rise above kind of bland, official policy statements or pure academic research into the public discussion of drug policy,” Heyman added. The conference events will be held on the UTEP campus and at the Plaza Theater in downtown El Paso. The public is invited, and all persons interested in attending the conference can find more information at the following website: http://warondrugsconference.utep.edu/ -Kent Paterson September 9, 2009 Editor’s Note: A special contribution to Frontera NorteSur, the following story is the first piece of a new series that will examine issues of worker displacement, economic justice and rural and urban development in the Paso del Norte borderlands of southern New Mexico, far west Texas and El Paso-Ciudad Juarez News Displaced by NAFTA, Women Workers Struggle for Stimulus Funds For El Paso women like Hilda Villegas, Mercado Mayapan is more than just a
place to work from nine-to-five. After sweating it out in factories and
restaurants, the young mother of two found her way into the ranks of La
Mujer Obrera (LMO), an El Paso-based non-profit that advocates for Nowadays, Villegas helps run the media center at Mercado Mayapan, a sprawling, indoor, four-month-old marketplace and community center initiated by LMO and situated in the rusting quarters of El Paso’s old garment district. “It’s a family struggling to make a difference,” is how Villegas described the women who collectively operate Mercado Mayapan. Whether helping clients with computers or ringing up a cash register, Villegas is an example of how Mercado Mayapan’s workers learn a variety of tasks and skills. “Women don’t get stuck in only one position,” Villegas added. “That’s the beauty of this project. According to Irma Montoya, longtime LMO activist Mercado Mayapan cultural events coordinator, the 106 employees of the market earn $7.55 per hour and up, depending on the position. Designed as a traditional Mexican market, the 40,000 square-foot building houses a small supermarket, food and drink stands and artisan’s booths. A stage provides space for local musicians and entertainers. Tucked into one corner of the converted warehouse, a museum displays old
sewing machines and scenes of local garment workers struggles, including
the 1972 Farah strike that emerged as one of the historic milestones of
the Chicano movement. Offering free computers and Internet service to Besides providing products and services to the local community, Mercado Mayapan exudes the air of a large-scale tourist attraction in a more vibrant time. Also a former factory worker, Montoya called Mercado Mayapan the “prototype” of an even more ambitious project: Plan Mayachen, which is aimed at revitalizing a bigger chunk of economically-depressed El Paso. Although Mercado Mayapan represents the fruition of a dream, the futures of Villegas and 105 fellow workers are in doubt. After defaulting on a City of El Paso loan and running out of funds, Mercado Mayapan briefly closed its doors last week. Contending that start-up monies pledged by a variety of agencies and institutions were slow in coming, LMO staged a brief occupation of El Paso Mayor John Cook’s office on September 3. Cook was taken aback by the noisy demonstration, which occurred during his regular open-office hours. “They decided how they would pay the $250,000 (loan) was to picket and disrupt,” Cook said in a phone interview. “I’m willing to work with them, but it’s kind of hard when they show up with 50 people and placards and shout me down when I try to say something.” Despite the loan default, Cook said that he would back a staff recommendation that the El Paso City Council approve $400,000 in Empowerment Zone monies for LMO. The issue is expected to be addressed at the next El Paso City Council meeting on September 15. After the action at Cook’s office, LMO announced it would reopen Mercado Mayapan with the voluntary labor of employees willing to work without pay until a possible infusion of new funds from the City of El Paso and the North American Development Bank materializes later this fall. Hugo Loftus, program officer for the bank’s Community Adjustment and Investment Program, said a decision on LMO’s application for a one million-dollar grant should be announced not long after October 1. According to Loftus, the program fund has disbursed $14 million in grants during the last five or six years to high-employment communities which suffered job losses from the North American Free Trade Agreement. A core of committed women-and some men-are determined to make Mercado Mayapan a success. Laid off from Farah in 1995, Paz Ortiz said LMO is a “unique” organization for displaced workers like herself. “This was the only place that helped me,” Ortiz asserted, “because everywhere else, they said we workers were already too old.” Villegas is determined to stick out the hard times. “We take it personal. We’re not going to let it die,” she vowed. “It’s hard to for us to see it go down after so many struggles.” On Labor Day weekend, several dozen Mercado workers and their supporters
staged a rally at the site to demand continued support for the project and
the investment of federal stimulus monies in a worker-run enterprise.
Chanting “Work, Justice and Dignity,” demonstrators help aloof signs that No elected officials showed up for the demonstration. Hanging near the market’s entrance, a large banner urged supporters to
contact President Obama, Mayor Cook and Congressman Silvestre Reyes. In
big words the banner stated: “This market is being run solely on the
workers’ will to struggle for their jobs, as the government is refusing to In a statement criticizing government support as “piecemeal” and “inadequate,” LMO demanded $3.5 million in federal stimulus monies to save not only the 106 existing jobs at Mercado Mayapan but add 60 additional ones. Asked to compare Mercado Mayapan’s situation with El Paso’s Fort Bliss, where $100 million is being spent by the US government to build a new shopping mall as part of the army base’s expansion, Irma Montoya was direct. “Our project also deserves the same type of consideration,” she said. “We also want our people and their families to not necessarily live in luxury but to have at least the necessities they need to get ahead and live in a dignified way.” News of Mercado Mayapan’s woes sparked a flurry of comments on local media
websites, many of them very critical of LMO and the market. While some
messages offered specific criticisms about the lack of parking,
inefficient service and business planning, many railed against Mexicans Addressing workers and their supporters, Hilda Villegas took the critics to task. “They are very convinced of what our place should be-taking care of
children, going to take care of old people, (working) the restaurant,
cleaning buildings,” Villegas said. “We know how to do this, and we know
how to do it very well. We know how to work but we also know how to think Mayor Cook recognized that LMO had valid concerns about the federal government subsidizing the auto and other big industries while neglecting workers, but questioned whether Mercado Mayapan can stand alone as currently constituted and operated. “For the last four years, we’ve been questioning whether this model has a
chance for viability or is going to be an organization that’s going to
need constant subsidies,” Cook said. La Mujer Obrera and Mercado Mayapan
need to reexamine their business strategy and decide whether they are -Kent Paterson Mary Poppins and Indiana Jones in Mexico Bronco It could have been a suspenseful scene from any old action flick. Gathered in Chihuahua City this past week for the inauguration of the International Film Festival, a star-studded crowd of movie producers, actors and politicians listened to an orchestra pound out themes from Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Actors dressed like Charlie Chaplin, Darth Vader, E.T., Mary Poppins, and other cultural icons made cameos at the red-carpeted gala in the downtown of Chihuahua state’s capital city, as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” entertained onlookers. But just as a showing of “Buddha’s Head” got underway, a bomb threat and
gunfire not far from the festival site temporarily forced the evacuation
of celebrities. Like Ciudad Juarez to the north, Chihuahua City is the
scene of a real-life war between competing underworld gangs. The bomb A host of distinguished personalities was on hand for the event. The
guests and participants included, among others, Marina Stavenhagen,
general director of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography; Alvaro
Madero, president of the International Film Committee; Mexican actress The festival was part of an initiative by the Chihuahua state government to promote the international film industry as a new local business opportunity. “This is the beginning of a new era of culture in Chihuahua,” said former Mexican model and television personality Rebeca de Alba. “Applause goes out to everyone involved in positioning Chihuahua as a platform to attract the national and international film industry.” Chihuahua now joins a host of other entities in Mexico and the US which
are pulling out the financial stops to attract movie production. In the
21st century, the film industry is following the textile, auto, Although state and municipal governments on both sides of the border currently face huge budget deficits that have education and social programs on the chopping block, many continue to lavish generous subsidies on the film industry. For example, New Mexico provides interest-free loans, subsidized labor, sales tax exemption and other financial incentives for Hollywood. New Mexico’s success in luring California movie producers has earned a state more known for its green chile the curious nickname of “Tamalewood.” “During these erratic financial times, the biggest compliment we consistently receive is that New Mexico’s film incentive programs are tried and true, reliable and sustainable,” reads in part a statement by New Mexico Film Office Director Lisa Stout on the agency’s website. The rush by US and Mexican states to subsidize the movie industry has officials in the old heartland of the big screen clearly worried. The phenomenon of a “runaway” film industry led the Los Angeles City Council August 11 to enact a five-year suspension of the multi-media business tax and pass a resolution to explore the expansion of a tax incentive. Earlier, at a March 24 meeting, Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry
introduced a successful motion that recognized the importance of a historic
film industry increasingly tempted by government offers of support from
outside the region. Sources: El Heraldo de Chihuahua, August 21, 2009. Article by Aracely Sanchez Ruiz. Lapolaka.com, August 21, 2009. Los Angeles Downtown News, August 17, 2009. Nmfilm.com Bus Fare Hikes Anger Public Bus riders have long complained of second-rate and even dangerous service. In violation of a state law that stipulates buses can’t be more than ten
years old, an estimated 94 percent of buses registered in Ciudad Juarez
were manufactured in 1998 or earlier. Supporters of left opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador earlier
urged Governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo to reverse the increase.
Gilberto Olmos Casiano of the Committee in Defense of Petroleum and the
Popular Economy contended that mass transportation should be in the hands
of municipal ownership. 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 confrontation between rival cartels was imminent early this year. Additionally, new manifestations of violence that never existed before in Ciudad Juarez have surrounded the implementation of the military operation. For instance, a dozen businesses have been torched by presumed cartel elements in recent days. On the Internet, rival drug organizations wage a cyber-war complete with threatening videos and insulting messages. In another development heretofore unseen on the border, individuals have started hanging execution lists and “narco-banners” from public monuments and overpasses. Postings are even seemingly tied to coincide with rush hour and maximum exposure. In the 21st Century battle for the Ciudad Juarez drug “plaza,” a psychological war increasingly accompanies the physical one. Sources: Norte, June 16, 2008. Article by Pablo Hernandez Batista. El Paso Times, Narcos, Soccer and the Public Good Catapulted into Mexico’s First Division, Ciudad Juarez’s Indios soccer team is hot. The triumph of the hometown favorites provided the occasion for heady declarations about the future of the privately-owned Indios. Cited in El Diario de El Paso, a report from Mexico’s Economist newspaper claimed the Indios’ ascension into the First Division shot up the value of the team from $4 million to $17 million. The Indios’ owner, Francisco Ibarra Molina, would not confirm the Economist’s story, but he soon joined with government officials to unveil a plan to take the Indios to even greater heights of glory. Flush with pride, Ibarra and Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza appeared together at a press conference to announce that the state government will support the construction of a new stadium for the Indios. Governor Reyes Baeza did not say how much the stadium will cost or how it will be fully financed, but he said that 400 VIP boxes could be sold to help pay for the project, which is envisioned for completion in 2010. An undetermined amount of state funding will be allocated for the stadium, Chihuahua’s governor added. Left undisclosed was where the stadium will be built. At the moment several zones of Ciudad Juarez are undergoing redevelopment, including sections of the historic downtown and the area near the future US Consulate. The northwestern edges of Ciudad Juarez, encompassing the Lomas de Poleo and Anapra neighborhoods near the New Mexico border, are likewise within the perimeter of important future developments. Currently, the Indios practice and play at a stadium owned by the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ). Under the terms of an agreement between the public university and Indios, the soccer team’s rent payment comes out to about $250,000 per year. Nonetheless, the Indios avoid paying most of the amount in cash by including the UACJ logo on players’ shirts, by giving a number of free tickets to the university, and by paying for maintenance costs. The Indios are responsible for upgrades of the school’s sporting complex, and the team donates money for academic grants. Private sponsors including Home Depot, Lala, Plastimex, IDN and Grupo Yvasa support the Indios to the tune of a reported $15 million annually. Team owner Francisco Ibarra heads a company that received the contract for the building of the new Camino Real highway on the outskirts of the city during the previous municipal administration of Hector “Teto” Murguia. Apart from the private sector, the Indios get monetary support from both the state and municipal governments. In the last 7 months, the two public entities have funneled $340,000 to the Indios and a basketball team, the Club Gallos de Pelea. The use of tax money to support a private team, however popular, is beginning to stir controversy in a city where thousands of people still lack running water, where major boulevards suffer cave-ins from rotting infrastructure and where a public safety crisis is the order of the day. Ciudad Juarez City Council member Leticia Corral Jurado, who represents the opposition National Action Party, said subsidies given to the Indios might be better spent elsewhere. “I know sports are important for our community, but it seems to me there are other priorities instead of giving equivalent resources to private companies,” Jurado said. An admitted soccer fan, state legislator Victor Quintana of the Democratic Party of the Revolution urged transparency in any dealings between government and private sports clubs. Quintana cited numerous scandals involving soccer teams, including the Necaxa club of Aguascalientes, which got a legally-questionable sweetheart deal complete with an improved stadium, tax exemptions and other breaks when it relocated to the central Mexican city earlier in the decade. Like professional US sports, scandals over money, power and fame have become part and parcel of the action in Mexico’s soccer world in recent years. First apparent in Colombia, alleged ties between some soccer clubs and the illegal drug underworld also have tarnished the Mexican sporting world. Before his reported death in 1997, Ciudad Juarez drug kingpin Amador Carrillo Fuentes reportedly tried to buy La Corregidora stadium and more than 50 acres in Queretaro. In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, more than a few are rooting for the Indios and a return to the brief hours of bliss that unfolded in the city on the evening of May 25. Since the Indios’ memorable victory, the scene on the streets has returned to the bloody “normalcy” that’s defined the year so far. Within the past three days alone, at least 10 people were slain in the gangland wars. Two innocent bystanders were among the victims, including an unlucky laborer who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” according to press accounts, and 24-year-old Neri Dominguez Pacheco, a single mother of three who was three months pregnant. An emotionally devastated Hilario Dominguez, Neri’s father, recounted how his family had moved like so many others from the state of Veracruz in search of a better life in a city that the sign at the southern entrance of Ciudad Juarez boasts is “the best border” in Mexico. “She was happy, lately dedicating herself to her children,” Dominguez said of his slain daughter. “She was a worker, washing cars, cleaning houses, and helping out in a little restaurant..” Sources: Lapolaka.com, June 5, 2008. El Diario de Juarez, May 26, 2008; June 4 and 5, 2008. Articles by Armando Rodriguez, Horacio Carrasco, A. Quintero and editorial staff. Proceso/Apro, June 2, 2008. Article by Veronica Espinosa. El Diario de El Paso, May 28, 29, 30, 31, 2008. Articles by Sergio Arturo Duarte, A. Salmon, Gabriela Minjares, and editorial staff. Proceso, June 20, 2004. Article by Raul Ochoa and Ricardo Ravelo. El Sol del Centro, July 22, 2003. Bad Moon Rising: The Crisis in Ciudad Juarez Known for its irreverent tone and sarcastic headlines, Ciudad Juarez’s Lapolaka.com news service summed up the mood in the border city: “Ciudad Juarez is out of control, and it is entering into a stage of collective hysteria and war this Friday.” The Internet news site was, of course, referring to a still-mysterious and widely-distributed e-mail that warned of extreme violence planned for Ciudad Juarez last weekend. In a city ravaged by seemingly endless killings connected to a war between rival drug cartels, many people took the advice of the e-mail seriously and stayed home. Business at bars and restaurants evaporated, a bull fight was cancelled and a concert featuring what passes these days as the old US rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival was similarly given the no-go. “Ciudad Juarez resembled a ghost town on Saturday afternoon and evening,” said journalism student Claudia Moreno Torres. “I’ve never seen a crisis like this one before,” said Pascual Hernandez, a restaurant owner in the Avenida Juarez tourist district who counts 40 years in the business. By last weekend, what began as a public safety crisis earlier this year had evolved into a broader political-economic one as well. Restaurants, bars, hotels, pharmacies, and other businesses have reported losing between 20-70 percent of normal sales in recent days. Leopoldina Aguirre Anchondo, executive director of the Small Business Chamber of Commerce, said 350 small businesses have shut their doors since the beginning of 2008. Stirred in with the narco war and rising street crime, kidnappings for ransom, which could exceed more than 40 cases this year so far, are creating a generalized sense of insecurity. According to Jorge Pedroza Serrano, executive director of the Maquiladora Association, it was business as usual for the hundreds of export factories that supply the US consumer market. “Our workers and employees can circulate throughout the different sections of the city with the certainty that their physical integrity is respected,” Serrano insisted. “The different police agencies are ready to make sure of that.” Talk is emerging of a “Nuevo Laredo Effect” shaking Ciudad Juarez, in allusion to the narco war that devastated Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, several years ago, when pitched street battles that even included bazookas dried up tourism, shut down businesses and sent perhaps thousands fleeing across the border to Laredo, Texas. Already, prominent Juarenses are reported lying low in neighboring El Paso, Texas. The latest slayings brought this year’s murder toll to at least 371 victims, a statistic which surpasses the homicide count of 316 for all of 2007. So many killings are taking place that bodies are stacking up in the city morgue. And this year’s murder roll doesn’t include the 46 bodies discovered in two clandestine graves. According to Jaime Hervella, director of the Association of Relatives and Friends of Disappeared Persons in El Paso, the bodies could have been buried from 5 to 10 years ago. Not one corpse has been publicly identified so far, Hervella said. “Juarez has been lost to us,” shrugged Arturo Dominguez, president of the city public safety commission. “The crime rate comes from not paying attention. All of us, citizens, functionaries and businessmen, lost control of the city watching was happening on the corner but saying nothing. It is regrettable there is no order, but if we’ve lost control, Prominent residents of the city were buried during the bloody month of May. Longtime bar operator Willie Moya, who ran Hooligan’s, Vaqueras y Broncos, Frida’s, Tabasco’s, Arriba Chihuahua, Willy’s Country Disco and other clubs popular among both US and Mexican citizens, was gunned down outside one of his establishments. The 48-year-old Moya was called Ciudad Juarez’s “King Midas” by some members of the local community. Former federal Congressman Carlos Camacho, who served as the Chihuahua state delegate for the Attorney General for Environmental Protection, was kidnapped by men possibly dressed as soldiers and strangled to death. Camacho was known by many environmental activists from both sides of the border for his fervent opposition to a nuclear waste dump that was planned for Sierra Blanca, Texas, during the 1990s. Targeted by killers, police continued falling in the line of hostile gunfire. Two municipal policemen were gunned down May 24 near the Delicias substation, bringing to 14 the number of city cops slain this year so far. On May 25, a new list of policemen targeted for death was discovered posted in Chihuahua City. Unlike the previous list which focused Ciudad Juarez municipal policemen, the latest one also puts state officers squarely in the aim of assassins. Last weekend’s events, in which an anonymous e-mail triggered the partial shutdown of an industrial city of more than 1.3 million people, raised hotly-debated questions about media, cyberspace, government and the drug culture. The Spanish-language US television network Univision reported that organized crime succeeded in bringing a city to its knees by means of an anonymous threat, but the truth of the matter is that no one is sure who was the author of the e-mail. Theories ranged from criminal gangs to social conservatives to a teenager playing a bad joke on the Internet. Ricardo Ramirez Vela, president of the local branch of the Canirac restaurant industry association, floated a novel theory: “I don’t doubt that this (e-mail) could have come from people who have businesses in the United States and are trying to profit from what is happening in our city.” Across the Rio Grande, the jolting e-mail and ongoing violence sparked an emotionally charged but intellectually challenged exchange on the El Paso Times web site. A contributor who claimed to have witnessed the aftermath of a recent execution offered a tip of practical advice to anyone visiting Ciudad Juarez. He advised motorists to keep their windows cracked and the radio tuned down so sounds of gunshots could be easily heard. While some writers took the opportunity to explore issues like the connection between the consumption of illegal drugs in the United States and violence in Mexico, others used the forum as a platform to expound thinly-disguised racist attitudes toward Mexicans. Some called for closing the border, deploying US troops, constructing a huge wall and firing Patriot missiles into Mexico. As one writer commented in response to the proposal for an artillery barrage, Patriot missiles are shot into the air at other missiles. Until now, Ciudad Juarez’s latest narco war has not spilled across the border into the US, though the US Embassy in Mexico City cautioned citizens about visiting the city last weekend. Many people questioned the actions of elected officials, law enforcement authorities and the federal government. Even as new bodies were piling up for processing in the city morgue, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz flew off to a mass transportation conference in Bogota, Colombia. Mayor Reyes left the city in the hands of a retired military officer, former Major Roberto Orduna, who was appointed only days earlier and almost immediately faced a rebellion by a unit of officers complaining of unreasonably long work shifts. Out of sight during Ciudad Juarez’s worst crisis in recent years, the mayor and the governor drew critical comments in the press. Both men cut short their trips only to return to a blood-soaked homeland. Many citizens wonder what the army is really doing in their city. Since March, more than 3,000 federal troops and police have been dispatched to Ciudad Juarez as part of an officially-proclaimed campaign to quell violence and bring organized crime to heel, but the violence has only worsened since the federales put their boots on the ground. With trained troops supposedly on patrol, it’s not clear how groups of armed men can freely roam the streets executing victims in broad daylight and burning down buildings without at least one or two of the assailants getting caught. Hernan Ortiz, spokesman for the Popular Independent Organization, said the current round of events wasn’t surprising in view of the impunity that is practically institutionalized. Ortiz cited the unresolved femicides, aggressions against residents of the Lomas de Poleo neighborhood, round-the-clock drug markets and the proliferation of thousands of illegally-imported cars as examples of unanswered wake up calls. “There is no government or authority capable of putting order to the situation,” Ortiz said. “The crimes against women are also a point of reference that says everything about the existing problem.” By the evening of May 25, some residents were ready to lay their city’s deep heartaches to rest. A rowdy crowd of tens of thousands braved the uncertain evening and overwhelmed the city’s airport to greet Ciudad Juarez’s returning Indios soccer team. In a weekend match, the local heroes defeated the Esmeraldas in the rival team’s hometown of Leon, Guanajuato. The game witnessed a riot, with police firing tear gas and helicopters buzzing fans. The collective euphoria at the airport aside, the lyrics from an old Creedence Clearwater Revival hit that were not sang live in Ciudad Juarez as expected perhaps best captured the spirit of the times in the troubled border city: I see the bad moon rising. Don’t go around tonight, Additional Sources: El Universal/AP, May 25, 2008. Frontenet.com, May 21, 24 and 25, 2008. El Paso Times, May 24, 25 and 26, 2008. Articles by Diana Washington Valdez, Adriana Chavez, Darren Mertiz, and Stephanie Sanchez. Lapolaka.com, May 16, 23, 24, 25, 2008. Norte, May 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 2008. Articles by Antonio Rebolledo, Nohemi Barraza, Francisco Lujan, and Pablo Hernandez Batista. El Diario de Juarez, May 18, 23, 24, 25, 26, 2008. Articles by Armando Rodriguez, Blanca Carmona, Gabriel Simental, and editorial staff. La Jornada, May 18 and 25, 2008. Articles by Ruben Villalpando, the Notimex news agency and editorial staff. www.lyricsfreak.com The Rice Crisis Hits the Border Living in the US-Mexico borderlands, residents grow up eating mouth-watering, inexpensive meals rounded off by beans and rice. At least that was the case until now. In El Paso, Texas, residents are stunned by sharp price increases that saw the wholesale value of a ton of Thai-produced rice shoot up by more than 100 percent since last January. At the retail level, rice prices increased by ten percent just last month, according to government reports. El Paso resident Estela Garcia is among locals who are expressing mounting concern about the availability and affordability of a culturally-defining food. “But as we know everything goes up in this country, except wages. I hope that other grains don’t go up, like wheat, which is also a staple,” Garcia said. In Garcia’s hometown, the international rice price crisis hit made local news last week when Sam’s Club, which is owned by Wal-Mart, announced it was limiting sales of jasmine, basmati and long grain white rice to four 20-lb. sacks per customer. Costco also reportedly instituted a similar local policy. According to a statement from Sam’s Club, the sales rationing was implemented in order to assure a steady supply of a basic product. In a place where enchiladas with beans and rice or burritos with beans and rice are daily “I’ve never found myself in a situation where there is no rice,” said restaurant customer And in an increasingly multi-cultural city, the rice price hikes have jolted owners and workers at East Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants. The responses of restaurateurs have been mixed, with some trying to hold the line on prices while others are jacking up meal prices by a dollar or two, according to press accounts. “I cannot afford to run out of rice. Oh, my God. That’s like a Mexican restaurant without tortillas,” said Francisco Wong, the owner of three Chinese-style diners in El Paso. Sam’s Club restrictions on local rice sales quickly became international news, with the online edition of the Mexico City-based La Jornada daily posting a story on its home page. Many analysts discount an actual rice shortage, attributing the sudden price increase to speculation in futures markets, where basic grains currently fetch hefty profits, as well as the strategic decision of countries like the United States to subsidize and promote the production of biofuels at the expense of crops produced for animal and human consumption. Sources: El Diario de El Paso, April 24 and 25, 2008. Articles by Gustavo Cabullo. Prominent Women’s Activist, Farm Leader Arrested Cipriana Jurado, a prominent Ciudad Juarez women’s rights activist, is now free after posting a $700 bond. The director of the Worker Research and Solidarity Center, Jurado was arrested by Mexican federal police outside her home on Wednesday, April 2. The veteran activist was charged with blocking a public roadway during an October 2005 protest sponsored by the binational Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and other organizations at one of the international bridges that link Ciudad Juarez with El Paso, Texas. Also arrested on the same charges as Jurado was Carlos Chavez Quevedo, who was reportedly picked up by federal police in the city of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. Chavez is a co-founder of the National Agrodynamic farm organization, whose leader Armando Villareal Martha was assassinated in Nuevo Casas Grandes last month. According to Chihuahua state legislator Victor Quintana, at least 40 other arrest warrants stemming from the October 2005 protest are pending. No additional word of Chavez’s detention status was available as Frontera NorteSur went to press. A former maquiladora worker and a member of the PRD political party, Jurado has been active in a variety of labor, environmental and human rights causes in Ciudad Juarez and the Mexico-US border region. A long-time supporter of relatives of femicide victims, Jurado was reportedly arrested after returning from forensic offices where she had gone on business related to investigations of the women’s murders. Interviewed by the local press after her release, Jurado contended that she resisted officers who did not show her an arrest warrant. The policemen were driving a vehicle without license plates and with tainted windows (similar to the vehicles employed by drug cartel hit men) and possessed dubious identifications, she said. As a result of the stand-off, the police officers shoved her into their vehicle, Jurado charged. Jurado’s detention came in the middle of a major operation by Mexican federal police and soldiers ostensibly aimed at organized crime in Ciudad Juarez. On Friday, April 4, US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza visited Ciudad Juarez to express the Bush Administration’s support for Mexico City’s border military offensive. It wasn’t immediately clear why the Mexican federal government suddenly acted on legal issues almost three years old at a time when Mexican troops and federal police were supposedly focused on dislodging the power of well-rooted drug cartels. “(Government officials) are taking advantage of this situation to resolve one thing with another,” said former Chihuahua Women’s Institute head Vicky Caraveo. “We don’t know the purposes of the (arrests). We know we are in a difficult situation and we know they are carrying out operations against delinquency, but (Jurado) is not a delinquent. She’s an authentic social activist. If this happens to her, it is a warning to us what will follow.” Jurado’s arrest quickly drew responses from US and Mexican supporters who sent e-mails and organized a demonstration in front of federal court offices in Ciudad Juarez. Individuals and groups who rallied to Jurado’s defense included Casa Amiga’s Esther Chavez Cano and Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa. After leaving jail, Jurado charged that her detention was a case of government repression. “We are going to continue struggling for the causes we have struggled for all these years,” she said, “because we have a commitment to the community and to our children. We don’t want them to live with the repression and the problems with which we are living.” Additional sources: Lapolaka.com, April 4 and 5, 2008. La Jornada, April 4 and 5, 2008. Articles by Ruben Villalpando and M.Breach. Norte, April 5, 2008. Articles by Luis Carlos Ortega and Felix A. Gonzalez. El Diario de Juarez, April 5, 2008. Articles by Gabriela Minjares, Juan de Dios Olivas and Sandra Rodríguez. Farm Leader Assassinated Armando Villareal, a prominent farm activist in the state of Chihuahua, has been murdered. The 50-year-old head of the Agrodinamica Nacional organization was shot to death March 14 gangland-style in broad daylight while driving with his son in the rural town of Nuevo Casas Grandes. According to preliminary reports, Villareal was ambushed by another vehicle containing a masked man attired in military-style clothing. The assailant fired repeated shots from an AK-47 assault rifle, killing Villareal. The farm leader’s 18-year-old son survived the attack. Max Correa, the leader of the Central Campesina Cardenista organization, demanded that the state and federal governments punish the perpetrators of Villareal’s assassination. “The movement (Villareal) headed and the declarations he made affected many interests of agricultural speculators and those who benefit from big importations of basic grains,” Correa said. A controversial figure, Villareal led a group of farmers with a significant presence “He waged a fierce struggle to lower the costs of electrical energy for the farmers so they could produce in better conditions,” said Fernando Flores, a member of the Villareal’s lawyer, Sergio Conde Varela, said his client and companions were followed by unidentified individuals after leaving the Ciudad Juarez airport last Thursday. The group had just returned from a Mexico City farm policy forum. In the past, Villareal was followed by agents from the Federal Investigations Agency (AFI), Varela added According to another unidentified source quoted in the Ciudad Juarez press, Thursday´s episode escalated into a high-speed chase that only ended when Villareal lost his pursuers in the municipality of Ascension, Chihuahua. Additional sources: Lapolaka.com, March 14 and 15, 2008. Norte,March 15, 2008. Articles by Carlos Huerta, G. Salcido and A.ZubiaEl Diario de Juarez, March 15, 2008. El Sur/Agencia Reforma,March 14 and 15, 2008. Texas Gives Green Light to Copper Smelter Despite widespread cross-border opposition, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has given a mothballed El Paso plant the go ahead to once again start smelting copper. At a February 13 meeting in Austin, Texas, TCEQ commissioners voted 3-0 to give the American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco) a five-year air quality permit. Asarco's air permit request was opposed by numerous non-governmental organizations and governmental entities from Texas, New Mexico and Ciudad Juarez. Straddling the Rio Grande, Asarco’s El Paso smelter is located directly across the river from Ciudad Juarez and within one mile of the New Mexico border. "This smelter has had a sad history of fouling the air and potentially harming the health of citizens in Southern New Mexico," said New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who wrote a letter of concern to Texas Governor Rick Perry prior to the TCEQ's long-delayed decision. TCEQ commissioners argued that current state law forced officials to grant approval to Asarco’s permit. “If I were king for the day, the Texas Clean Air Act wouldn’t look anything like it does today,” said Commissioner Larry Soward, who was quoted in the El Paso Times. The TCEQ did attach a number of recommendations and conditions to the permit, including the setting up of four lead monitors for the smelter. Spokespersons for Asarco were pleased by the TCEQ’s decision. “You don’t have to choose between jobs and the environment,” Asarco attorney Pam Giblin said to TCEQ commissioners. “You can really have both.” The City of El Paso, which was among several parties formally contesting Asarco's permit application, had unsuccessfully lobbied the TCEQ to postpone the February 13 meeting because of pending, unresolved issues related to the smelter’s operation. Austin attorney Erich Birch, who represents the City of El Paso, told Frontera NorteSur that upcoming US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lead emissions standards which could go into effect later this year are expected to mandate stricter limits than are currently on the books. Also, the City of El Paso plans to petition the TCEQ to revoke Asarco's permission to operate because of alleged violations of the company's air permit that happened before Asarco suspended its operations in 1999, Birch said. Last but far from least is the issue of who is responsible for Asarco. Embroiled in Texas bankruptcy proceedings, Asarco is owned by Grupo Mexico but controlled by a court-appointed independent board of directors that could sell off the smelter and its assets. A subsidiary of Grupo Mexico, Asarco, Inc., is attempting to recuperate management control of the company. Late last month, Asarco, Inc. announced it would not reopen the smelter if it regains management authority. In a statement, the company pledged to work with environmental authorities and the community to clean up contamination at the plant site. "There's all this stuff in limbo," Birch said, adding that he didn't expect the smelter to reopen overnight. Meanwhile, the City of El Paso has the right to appeal the TCEQ's action to state District Court, according to Birch. "I'm sure the City will appeal this decision," he said. Environmental activists plan to press their fight. The controversy spread to Mexico's federal Chamber of Deputies last week, when legislators passed a resolution that requested the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs invoke the 1983 La Paz Agreement between Mexico and the US and raise the issue of Asarco with both the TCEQ and the EPA. The Mexican congressmen seek compensation for Ciudad Juarez neighborhoods allegedly contaminated by lead and other heavy metals from Asarco's previous operations. The Mexican congressional resolution also requested that the possible reopening of Asarco be discussed at the next meeting of the Joint Advisory Committee for the Improvement of Air Quality scheduled for February 28 in El Paso. Made up of government representatives and citizens from both sides of the border, the ccommittee reviews pollution control strategies and issues recommendations for the Paso del Norte international air basin. Additional sources: Newspapertree.com (El Paso), February 13, 2008. Articles by Sito Negron. Norte, February 12, 2008. Article by Herika Martinez Prado. El Diario de Juarez, February 12, 2008. February 8, 2008. El Paso Times, January 24, 2008; February 9 and 13, 2008. Articles by Brandi Grissom and editorial staff. Murder, Theft and Business Up In 2007 Jaime Torres Valadez, spokesman for Ciudad Juarez’s public safety department, called the homicide numbers “worrisome.” Characterizing the murder rate primarily as a social problem and not a police one, Torres said his officers will nevertheless redouble Violence, meanwhile, continued to rear its ugly head into 2008. The first day of the new year was ushered in with the discovery of a young murder victim inside her home. A 20-year-old student and retail store employee, Joanna Radilla Lucero was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death on
Indigenous Groups Defend Mexican Corn Meeting in Chihuahua's Sierra Tarahumara last weekend, representatives of more than 20 indigenous Raramuri and Tepehuan communities vowed to defend the traditional corn that nourishes their cultures and livelihoods. At the Third Annual Corn Fair held in Ejido Bacabureachi, indigenous leaders agreed to implement measures aimed at protecting their corn from genetically modified (GM) varieties. Among the proposals considered was a demand to require that any corn entering the Sierra Tarahumara for any purpose have a certificate of origin. Maria Teresa Guerrero, director of the Chihuahua City-based Community In recent months, the introduction of GM corn has become a hot issue in northern Mexican border states. Opponents fear that GM products will contaminate native corn species, as has already happened in different parts of Mexico, and with unpredictable, long-term environmental consequences. On the other hand, a large group of corn producers in the states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila and Chihuahua is seriously mulling the massive planting of GM crops. The pro-GM farmers view the new crops as beacons of progress and promise that will help them survive the January 1, 2008 elimination of corn tariffs under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Reportedly, GM corn produces a much greater per-acre yield than traditional species. According to Perfecto Solis, president of the Tamaulipas Corn Producers Council, farmers are growing frustrated by regulatory delays at the federal level in Mexico. Since 1999, Mexico has followed an official moratorium on the commercial planting of GM corn. "We can't wait five years more, especially when we have been placed at a competitive disadvantage with US corn producers," Solis said. "With or without regulation, we will begin to plant transgenic corn and, if necessary, we will recur to the use of force to defend our crops." But indigenous corn growers in Chihuahua, who cultivate small plots less than seven acres in size, maintain that the agricultural future still rests with the old corn varieties adapted to the high and dry environmental conditions of the Sierra Tarahumara. Persistent drought in the region remains a major challenge for small farmers who rely on the rains. Speaking at the corn fair, Marcelino Moreno of Ejido Las Lajas affirmed that traditional farming wasn't a mystery. "With the moon, as we always have done, as our elders did it, without chemicals and with a lot of work," Moreno advised. Other fair participants stressed organic fertilization and crop rotation as essential farming methods to ensure healthy harvests. Bacabureachi resident Luz Maria said preserving native corn was indispensable for the survival of indigenous culture. "Don't let them do away with corn," Luz Maria appealed, "because if corn is finished, so are the people." On a related note, the environmental group Greenpeace Mexico collected samples in Chihuahua in late November to test for the presence of genetically-modified organisms. Greenpeace’s sampling took place in corn-growing districts of the municipalities of Namiquipa, Nuevo Casas Grandes, Buenaventura and Cuahtemoc. Sources: La Jornada, November 13 and December 2, 2007. Articles by Matilde Perez U. and Miroslava Breach Velducea. Americaspolicy.org, December 3, 2007. Article by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero. Carlos Slim Stages a Border Water Coup In a flashy desert ceremony replete with mariachis and cheering supporters, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza kicked off a huge, new water supply and sanitation project for Ciudad Juarez on November 23. Designed to provide virtually the entire city with potable water while upgrading outdated wastewater treatment plants, the nearly $300 million public works project should be finished by 2009 or 2010, according to officials. Constructed to pipe in groundwater to existing low-income neighborhoods, the new Conejos-Medanos Aqueduct will be the crown jewel of the project. Once completed, the project could serve an estimated 345,000 residents of Ciudad Juarez. Funding for the water systems expansion will come from both the public and private sectors. "Today we initiate this project of social transcendence," Gov. Reyes said. "Today this dream is made possible thanks to the joint efforts and work of the government, private enterprise and civil society." A much-needed benefit of the project, Gov. Reyes pledged, would be the elimination of the nasty-smelling wastewater spills that make life miserable for residents of neighborhoods like Riberas del Bravo. He called Conejos-Medanos the most important undertaking of his 3-year-old administration. The water for the project will be drawn from the Conejos-Medanos aquifer that straddles the borderlands. Known as the Mesilla aquifer in the United States, the vital groundwater source supplies the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and other towns on the US side with drinking water. According to Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua state officials, 23 new deep wells will be drilled to provide water for the Mexican side. Once laid down, miles of new water distribution lines will add a flow of 1,000 liters per second to Ciudad Juarez's water supply, officials estimate. Manuel Herrera, a spokesman for Ciudad Juarez's Municipal Water and Sanitation Department, said each city resident currently consumes an average 280 liters of water every day, a figure which is 120 liters less than in 2000 when each resident used about 400 liters daily. Herrera affirmed that a concerted effort is underway to cut down on wasteful water use. "We've arrived at these numbers due to the committed work of society and government," he said. "The results have been very positive." The Conejos-Medanos project has implications for nearby US border communities. Greater tapping of the aquifer on the Mexican side will likely impact future water supplies in fast-growing southern New Mexico, where rapid development has become a growing political issue. For example, the November 6 Las Cruces municipal election resulted in the election of a new mayor and city councilors considered to hold more growth-cautious positions. In Mexico, the financing and management of the Conejos-Medanos project is certain to spark controversy. Standing out in the package is the concession granted to the Carso Infrastructure and Construction company (CISCA). Part of Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim's Grupo Carso, CISCA will invest about $100 million dollars in the project and be in charge of its construction. In return for the investment, the company was awarded a ten-year concession by the Chihuahua state government to sell water to Ciudad Juarez's municipal government. No further details about the agreement have been publicly released. Barely unveiled, the Conejos-Medanos project is already drawing critical commentaries on Ciudad Juarez’s Lapolaka.com news website. One writer, for instance, noted the proximity of the project to sections of Ciudad Juarez witnessing land speculation and highway construction connected to new border economic development plans for the planned binational city of Jeronimo-Santa Teresa on the Chihuahua-Mexico border and Anapra across from Sunland Park, New Mexico. Mexican officials did not immediately disclose whether Conejos-Medanos will directly benefit the two envisioned border growth-zones. In Mexican cities like Aguascalientes, meanwhile, private management of water supplies is generating public criticism of high rates and allegedly bad service. Last year, the Chihuahua City-based Community Technical Consultants banded together with 13 other farm, consumer and environmental organizations to launch a campaign in opposition to water privatization in Chihuahua. Perhaps in a pre-emptive strike at nascent Conejos-Medanos critics, Gov. Reyes denied that the arrangement with Slim's Grupo Carso would produce economic hardships for water users. "This will not have a direct impact on the people, on the bill they receive for home water consumption. We all pay water, sewage and sanitation. This is not going to have a negative repercussion on the economy of Juarez residents," Gov. Reyes contended. "The (Ciudad Juarez) water department, with its financial engineering, is going to cover the cost. The private investment has to be paid. The important thing here is that the department, with its financial management exercises every year, will cover this expense without impacting the population." The Chihuahua state government's high-stakes investment in Conejos-Medanos was readily evident during the kick-off ceremony held at a desert stopping on the Jeronimo-Santa Teresa Highway just outside Ciudad Juarez. The event was attended by Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz (no relation to the governor), Chihuahua State Supreme Court Chief Justice Rodolfo Acosta Munoz, state elected officials and representatives of the Mexican army. Promised gifts in return for their attendance, hundreds of residents of low-income neighborhoods were transported to the ceremony on private buses. "This is a project of life," said Uriel Chavez, one of the attendees, told the governor. "Thanks for thinking about us." Gov. Reyes, in turn, thanked Carlos Slim for making Conejos-Medanos a reality and invited the magnate for a toast of water once the project is done. Sources: El Diario de Juarez, November 23 and 24, 2007. Articles by Luz del Carmen Sosa. Norte, November 24, 2007. Article by Salvador Castro. Frontenet.com, November 23, 2007. Articles by Felix Gonzalez. Lapolaka.com, November 23, 24 and 25, 2007. Ecoamericas.com, December 2006. Frontera NorteSur/Environment, September 2000. Las-cruces.org/vote007. Ciudad Juarez Air Pollution Plan Unveiled Situated between mountain ranges and undergoing steady growth, Ciudad Juarez suffers a long-standing air pollution problem. Commercial trucks, city buses, personal automobiles, brick kilns, and unpaved roads all contribute to the degradation of the air shed. In recognition of the problem, the new municipal administration of Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz has drafted a set of goals to attack a problem that has dogged previous local governments. The plan was unveiled at a November 8 meeting of the Joint Advisory Committee (JAC) in the border community of Sunland Park, New Mexico. Founded in the 1990s, the JAC is a group made up of government and civil society representatives from Mexico and the United States that promotes clean air on both sides of the border. "We're trying to take a dynamic direction," said Hector Sandoval, the new director of Ciudad Juarez's ecology department. Sandoval, who ran as the Mexican Green Party's candidate for mayor in this year's election, laid out 13 clean air policy goals established by the Reyes administration. Highlights of the strategy include installing four air quality monitoring stations, requiring air emissions stickers on private vehicles, conducting inspections of private businesses, promoting a car-pooling lane on the heavily-traveled, international Bridge of the Americas, and bringing the municipal environmental ordinance up to date. To achieve its goals, the Reyes administration banks on working with the Chihuahua state government and the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ) in upgrading air pollution detection technology and in monitoring the old buses that rattle Ciudad Juarez's streets, Sandoval said. In a similar fashion, the city government is collaborating with the university and other authorities to promote the use of cleaner brick kilns as well as the construction of an "ecological park" to house the city's brick-making industry. According to Sandoval, getting older, dirty vehicles off the roads is a priority of the Reyes administration. The environment department chief told Frontera NorteSur that the city government plans a 500-vehicle pilot project similar to "cash for clunkers" schemes in the United States. Sandoval said the Ciudad Juarez program will offer cash payments to owners of old vehicles that can be recycled or used for parts. A seller will then be able to use the money from a car as a down payment on a new vehicle, he said. As an extra benefit of the planned vehicle buy-out, Mexico could utilize carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol, Sandoval added. No start-up date for Ciudad Juarez's "cash for clunkers" program has been set. Sandoval acknowledged that convincing car owners to part with their vehicles won't be easy. A sprawling city with a difficult public transportation system, many low-income Ciudad Juarez residents depend on cheap, used vehicles imported from the United States. The Ciudad Juarez Municipal Planning Department estimates 79 percent of city residents use vehicles which average 13 years in age. Ana Maria Contreras, air quality chief for the federal Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), estimates that 30 percent or less of the approximately 450,000 vehicles circulating in Ciudad Juarez have been inspected for air emissions. Mexican environmental authorities worry that the lifting of restrictions on the importation of used vehicles from Canada and the US set for January 2008 will result in even greater numbers of discarded, polluting cars and trucks coming into the borderlands from the North "This will create a big problem for the city," predicted Gerardo Tarin of Semarnat's Ciudad Juarez delegation. Tarin said enforcing a Mexican customs regulation requiring that used imported vehicle have an environmental sticker will hopefully curb the worst vehicles from entering Mexico. "It's hard to stop this from day to night, but at least we could stop the polluting ones," Hector Sandoval added. In Mexico, concerns are mounting about the environmental effects of a new used car import boom happening at the same time of meticulous US security inspections. Some environmental experts say that official air quality monitoring reports, which measure contaminants over relatively dispersed areas during extended periods of time, don't adequately gauge the impact of short-term, air pollution bursts caused by idling traffic near the region's international bridges where crossing times have reached as much as three hours at times in 2007. Alma Leticia Figueroa, twice head of Ciudad Juarez's ecology department and the current coordinator of the biology program at the UACJ, said the health of Mexican and US government workers, vendors, local residents and border-crossing students is jeopardized by the bridge congestion. "They are all people exposed to an air quality outside the norm," Figueroa said. A JAC participant for nearly a decade, Figueroa recalled attending numerous meetings with officials from Mexico and the US in which a “maximum” goal of 20 minutes crossing time was agreed to for bridge users. However, the current situation represents a step “backwards from what we proposed," Figueroa said. In an interview, Figueroa endorsed a special car pool lane, proposed harmonizing export-import environmental standards for used cars and suggested reserving thorough auto inspections at border crossings for secondary stations specifically meant to check suspicious cars and passengers. Figueroa contended that a pressing need exists in the United States for an educational campaign aimed at coaxing people not to dump their old, polluting vehicles on Mexico. Ultimately, she emphasized, Ciudad Juarez's air pollution problem is not confined by a glass barrier at the border. "El Paso, Sunland and Juarez are in a basin, a common space. We breathe the same quality of air," Figueroa said. A Prison Gang War Unsettles the City Law enforcement authorities have reestablished control over the city's sprawling prison (Cereso) that exploded in bloody combat on Thursday, November 1. In an all-too-familiar scene, hundreds of inmates armed with guns and sharp objects battled for control of the overcrowded facility. The fighting erupted as 300 relatives of inmates were visiting their loved ones. Caught in a cross-fire of rocks, bullets and tear gas, visiting families feared for their lives. "The prisoners wanted to kill us," said a terrified, 7-year-old Miguel Betancourt. Some relatives credited prisoners for saving their lives from rampaging inmates while prison guards stood by without intervening. Called to the scene, municipal police were able to evacuate some of the trapped visitors. "It was obvious that relatives were stuck between the two gangs and one of them was threatening to open fire on the visitors, including dozens of children and women." said city police spokesman Jaime Torres Valadez. "If this had been put down by force instead of by dialogue, we would have had a greater number of dead people." When the battle was finally over, two inmates, Humberto Hermelano Aguirre Candelario and Octavio Vargas Chavez lay dead, and 70 others were injured. The uprising was the first crisis to test the new city administration of Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz, who took office last month. Amid reports that prison guards allowed inmates to riot, Mayor Reyes fired Warden Jose Grajeda Almaraz and prison guard commander Anastasia Gallegos Gonzalez. State Attorney General Gonzalez's office quickly filed negligence charges against Gallegos and another prison employee. But Grajeda leaped to Gallegos’ defense. "He's honest, a worker, and has dignity and respect," Grajeda said. "It's unjust that people dedicated to their work are made to look like devils, and all of this because they give more credence to the bad apples, who are the ones that criticize Anastasio.” Grajeda maintained that he inherited a disastrous, explosive situation when he took over the job running the prison. The sacked warden added that he requested municipal and state officials transfer 101 inmates one week before the Cereso blew up, The November 1 violence pitted members of the Aztecas street gang against their longtime rivals from the Mexicles gang. The two groups have long struggled for control of the lucrative illegal drug business inside the prison. A third gang, "Killer Artists," also has a presence in the Cereso. State Attorney General Gonzalez said witnesses have accused former prison guard commander Gallegos of protecting the Aztecas. Since late 2005, the Cereso has been the scene of violent power struggles between inmate gangs. With the latest violence, at least 18 inmates have been killed and more than 100 injured during the last two years. In the worst incident, nine prisoners were killed during a March 2006 fight. Earlier this year, two tunnels under the prison were discovered by authorities. Built to hold 1,500 inmates, the Cereso housed more than 3,000 prisoners when it erupted in violence last week. It's not publicly known what sparked the latest clash, but a reported Aztecas member and former Chihuahua State Judicial Police officer, Prisciliano Martinez Herrera, was murdered gangland-style on the streets of Ciudad Juarez two days before the prison violence erupted. Other alleged links between the Aztecas and former and current state policemen have been reported in the local press. According to State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez, events inside the prison are controlled from the outside by gang leaders who live in Ciudad Juarez or neighboring El Paso, Texas. Mayor Reyes appointed a veteran ex-state police official, Salvador Barrendo, as the new Cereso warden. Previously associated with the administration of former Governor Patricio Martinez (1998-2004) and his top cop, "Chito” Solis, the new warden immediately fended off criticism from some inmates about alleged corruption on his record. Barrendo said he would "dialogue" with prisoners, but ruled out formal negotiations. In a press conference, State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez confirmed that her office will probe the background to the November 1 violence. “We are looking at the probable responsibility and participation of authorities that were at the Cereso earlier, but these are preliminary investigations separate from the ones having to do with November 1,” Gonzalez clarified. As immediate steps to head off further bloodshed, authorities announced the transfer of some inmates and the construction of a concrete wall to separate members of the Aztecas and Mexicles gangs inside the prison. "The root problem won't be resolved until we build a new Cereso," said Legislators Jorge Neaves Chacon and Antonio Andreu Rodriguez of the Business and social leaders condemned the November 1 bloodletting, with some also urging federal intervention as well as an end to the widespread corruption which has allegedly characterized management of the prison. Gabriel Flores Viramontes, president of the local branch of the Canacintra business association, urged the construction of a new federal prison to hold problematic inmates. Laurencio Barraza Limon, a representative of the Independent Popular Organization, contended that a long overdue revamping of the prison system should include therapeutic treatment programs and rehabilitative activities. Sources: Norte, November 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2007. Articles by Nohemi Barraza, Carlos Huerta, Salvador Castro, Pablo Hernandez Batista, and Jorge Chairez Daniel. La Polaka.com, November 2, 3, 5, 6, 2007. Frontenet.com, November 4, 2007. El Diario de Juarez, October 31, 2007; November 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2007. Articles by Armando Rodriguez and editorial staff. Security Guards Block NGO Forum Tensions in a land dispute that pits members of a prominent Ciudad Juarez family against long-time residents of a poor neighborhood and their supporters were revved up a notch this past weekend. A citizen’s forum scheduled for Saturday, October 20, at school in Lomas de Poleo, a working-class settlement on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, was prevented from convening by guards employed by Pedro and Jorge Zaragoza. On Saturday, members of non-governmental organizations from Mexico and the United States arrived at Lomas de Poleo to discuss the land ownership battle only to find access to the neighborhood blocked by Zaragoza security personnel. Zaragoza representative Catarino del Rio Camacho argued that as private property owners his bosses had a right to prevent outsiders from entering the legally-contested lands. “The people who live here have free access but those who come to create conflict can’t enter because we don’t see any reason for them to be here.” In a statement distributed late Friday evening, Lomas de Poleo residents and their supporters denounced the presence of large numbers of armed men who were surrounding the neighborhood in an apparent attempt to thwart the next day’s planned forum. The statement criticized the deployment as an escalation of the violence which has punctuated the land dispute during the last few years. “One resident has been murdered, (and ) two children have been burned to death inside a home purposely set on fire as part of the demolitions of more than 40 homes by the Zaragoza guards,” the statement charged. “The Lomas de Poleo inhabitants have been cut off from the rest of the city and are currently within a state of siege at the hands of the powerful developers mentioned above.” Once a wind-swept, largely forgotten mesa that housed maquiladora workers and others trying to get by in Ciudad Juarez, Lomas de Poleo is now a prime chunk of real estate as city development creeps towards the planned binational city of Jeronimo-Santa Teresa. Lomas de Poleo is also close to Sunland Park, New Mexico, which could see a new international crossing and become a border business hub within the next few years. In 1996, Lomas de Poleo gained international notoriety as one of the places where the bodies of raped and murdered women were dumped. As a result of Saturday’s incident, the official Chihuaha State Human Rights Commission initiated an investigation to determine possible violations of residents’ and supporters’ rights, including the right to free transit. “The people have showed me the authorization of the director of the school to hold this event and the gate stops it from happening,” said commission representative Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson. Additional sources: Lapolaka.com, October 21, 2007. Norte, October 21, 2007. FNS Special Report : A Public Transportation Disaster Awaits Action Improving public transportation will be a hot item on the plate of issues facing Jose Reyes Ferriz when he takes office as the new mayor of Ciudad Juarez on October 10. In extensive coverage during the past two years, Ciudad Juarez media have documented bountiful irregularities, safety hazards and routine inefficiencies that plague a transportation system which ferries more than 450,000 people around the city every day. In an important sense, however, "public" transportation is a misnomer since Ciudad Juarez's urban buses are owned by private individuals who obtain concessions from the government in exchange for providing service. Fatal accidents, drunk and drugged bus drivers, unsafe and environmentally obsolete vehicles, spotty service, and alleged corruption are all issues that have received wide attention in local media. Speeding, racing, running red lights, improper turning and failing to yield are commonly reported behaviors of many of Ciudad Juarez's bus drivers. "The buses are all broken down,” moaned bus rider Claudia Perez. The bus drivers drive like crazies.." To top it all off, rickety units careening down Ciudad Juarez's streets frequently lack all their seats, forcing users to sit on plastic buckets at the back of the bus. A one-way trip on the bus costs approximately 40 cents. Maquiladora plant workers and residents of outlying low-income neighborhoods known as colonias are particularly at the mercy of the bus owners. Daredevil Journeys of Death and Destruction Official statistics reported in the Diario and Norte newspapers tell part of the story. From January to August 31 of this year, 569 bus-related accidents left 8 people dead and 19 injured. Forty-one drivers were cited for drunk driving, and 1,010 fines were levied for traffic violations ranging from making unauthorized stops to smoking on the bus. According to Hector Hernandez Varela, Chihuahua state government secretary, 2160 of 2700 buses in Ciudad Juarez are substandard and in violation of the Public Transportation Law. In early 2007, 82 maquiladora buses were removed from service. In 2006, 10 people were killed in bus-related accidents, while 14 perished in 2005. In 2006, the local branch of the Mexican Social Security Institute attended 1,600 work-related transportation accidents, 55 percent of which involved city or maquiladora buses. With three months remaining in the year, the fatality toll for 2007 already equals the number of deaths registered in 2006. Two pedestrians were killed by buses September, adding to the already high death roll tallied during the first eight months of the year. A 64-year-old woman, Maria Elvia Rangel was killed September 19 as she walked in front of city hall. The latest accidents stoked rising public indignation. "I met with the concessionaries yesterday and made it very clear to them that we aren't going to look the other way, said Ruben Luna Caldera, state transportation department chief in Ciudad Juarez. “Any irregularity will be sanctioned and the permit revoked in the event of reoccurrences or grave omissions,” Luna pledged. Untrained, overworked and even substance-abusing drivers are a big concern. Of 1994 drivers tested for drug use this year so far, 68 showed positive results. In August, it was revealed that a Lear Corporation-contracted bus driver had worked three successive shifts before he hit a car. Sixteen workers were injured and 40 others shaken-up badly in the accident. Some bus drivers blame careless pedestrians and passengers for making a difficult traffic situation even more hazardous. "(Passengers) don't respect the official bus stops for getting on and getting off," said driver Humberto Rangel. "They oblige the driver to stop and double park because the rider is demanding that the driver let him off, and if the driver doesn't let the passengers get off where they want, the passengers get mad and insult the driver." The Environmental Fallout In an age when governments issue high-sounding proclamations about curbing greenhouse gases to combat climate change, Ciudad Juarez's deepening public transportation crisis has profound environmental implications. A city built on the sprawl model, Ciudad Juarez's layout is not conducive to a rapid, efficient bus system. Stirring in problems of poor and dangerous service, it’s understandable that many individuals who might be convinced to use the bus opt for cheap, used cars instead. Indeed, the city is filled with highly-polluting, older-model automobiles practically dumped from the United States. "There is no alternative public transportation service that invites the citizen to leave behind the car," said Fernando Lozada Islas, an academic researcher in urbanization and urban mobility. "In my own case, I would use public transportation if there were a safe and reliable (system) in terms of schedule and coverage, and it could help the city's streets become less congested and contaminated." If anything, the unpopularity of public transportation is growing. In addition to unsafe transportation conditions, would-be users quickly discover that there are no published or posted route schedules. According to Ciudad Juarez’s Municipal Institute of Research and Planning, the percentage of trips in the city realized by means of public transportation plummeted from 45 percent in 1989 to 18 percent by 2006. The Bus as a Magnet of Public Discontent It remains to be seen if Ciudad Juarez's public transportation crisis turns into a flashpoint of political and social conflict as it has elsewhere in Mexico. Like Ciudad Juarez, "public" bus service across Mexico is in the hands of private concessionaires. In 2007, public anger over bus service has provoked public demonstrations and even violence in various regions of the country. In February, an estimated 1,000 residents of Chimaulcan, Mexico state, burned two buses and seized others after more than 20 accidents in the space of a few months alarmed the population. On two separate occasions, Acapulco residents protested the killings of two child pedestrians by bus drivers. In the most recent incident earlier this month, angry crowds upset over the death of 8-year-old Daniel Pineda Rodriguez burned a bus, attacked news photographers and later confronted police. In recent days, the Sonora state capital of Hermosillo was the scene of a popular uprising sparked by the unveiling of a new state bus system dubbed SUBA. Thousands of people took to the streets and blockaded highways to protest the loss of bus routes and, in some cases, the tripling of out-of-pocket expenses for bus fares. "I was paying 10 pesos to go to my work. Now I have to take 6 buses, when I only took two before," said Rosabla Valenzuela. "That's to say that I am spending 30 pesos every day to arrive to my destination..” Stunned by the public outcry, Sonora Governor Eduardo Bours announced that the old routes would be reestablished. “We recognize that we weren’t prepared to deal with the confrontations that happened during the week when SUBA was presented,” Governor Bours conceded. In Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, a representative of the Chihuahua state government announced that the administration of Governor Jose Reyes Baeza will conduct an audit of the local public transportation office. Allegations of false paperwork, under-the-table permit sales and the cancellation of fines in return for bribes have floated in the press. Ultimately, the audits could serve the purpose of taking concessions away from some individuals and awarding them to others. While on the campaign trail, mayor-elect Jose Reyes Ferrriz laid out general policies he said that his administration would like to pursue in the public transportation realm. Calling for greater investment, Reyes proposed a far-reaching system redesign, new transfer and pick-up hubs and expanded cross-border service to neighboring El Paso, Texas. Until now, the issue of public ownership of mass transportation, as is typical in the United States and Europe, hasn't been a prominent part of the debate over improving Ciudad Juarez's troubled bus service. Sources: Lapolaka.com. September 19 and 25, 2007. La Jornada, September 19, 27 and 28, 2007. Articles by Sergio Ocampo, Ulises Gutierrez and La Jornada Guerrero. Frontenet.com, August 15, 2007. El Diario de El Paso, September 20, 21, 22, 23, 2007. Articles by Mauricio Rodriguez, Luz Del Carmen Sosa, Hugo Chavez, and Juan Manuel Cruz. Norte, February 24 and 27, 2007; March 5 and 6, 2007; August 16 and 28, 2007; September 1, 2 and 9, 2007. El Diario de Juarez, August 30 and September 2, 2006; May 27, 2007; August 28, 2007; September 25, 26, 27, 29 2007. Articles by Horacio Carrasco, Blanca Carmona and editorial staff. El Sur, March 1 and September 19, 2007. Articles by Daniel Velazquez Olea and Aurora Harrision. El Universal, February 17, 2007. Article by Fernando Martinez. El Imparcial, September 29, 2007. The Absurd Deaths of Jazmin and Andres Move a City In Ciudad Juarez, the earth literally swallows its children. Early on the morning of September 11, Lucina Baca Perez was walking her 12-year-old daughter Jazmin Garcia Baca to middle school just like any other day. Crossing at the intersection of Ejercito Nacional and Valentin Fuentes avenues, Jazmin suddenly fell into a hole that seemingly appeared from nowhere in the collapsing street. She was sucked into a sewer drain more than 12 feet deep that was bursting with run-off from the previous day's storm. Panicking over the fate of her only daughter, Baca cried out for help. Two men getting off a passing bus, Andres Castro Azcarate and Abel Guajardo, responded to Baca's pleas and descended into the hole in an attempt to save Jazmin's life. Despite his heroic effort, Castro was swept to his death along with Jazmin in a fresh torrent of raging water; Guajardo was pulled to safety by passerby. The bizarre deaths of Jazmin and Andres jolted Ciudad Juarez, refocusing attention on the development paradox of an ever- growing industrial city that is one of the historic pillars of the modern global economy but which is plagued with decaying public works 15 years after the negotiators of the North American Free Trade Agreement pledged to improve infrastructure on the Mexico-US border. Ernesto Mendoza Viveros, president of Ciudad Juarez's municipal water agency, acknowledged that as much as 50 percent of the city's wastewater drainage system is obsolete, with some sections 50 years old. Another city official, Miguel Angel Jurado Marquez, said that the system, built underneath sandy soil, gets overwhelmed during storms. "Every time it rains we are subject to cave-ins," Jurado said. "There have been 220 cave-ins in the city during 2007 alone." Mendoza confirmed that city work crews will replace part of the system as well as analyze the conditions of an estimated 400 kilometers of pipes in order to prioritize repairs. State and municipal authorities plan to put up warning flags and mark street lanes at 10 sites deemed too risky for pedestrians and motorists after it rains. "These alerts aren't mean to create a psychosis among the population," said Ciudad Juarez residents expressed outrage over the September 11 tragedy. The incident inspired strongly-worded commentaries about spending priorities, city development plans and alleged government corruption and negligence. El Diario de Juarez reported that its electronic news service received more than 400 e-mails from citizens. In an open letter to Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and state legislators posted on the Lapolaka news website, engineer Norberto Guereque Cedillos and a group of anonymous friends lashed out at the management of public works programs. "How much is a life worth? 250 million pesos or a billion pesos?" Guereque questioned. As Ciudad Juarez geared up for the traditional September 16 independence day celebration, the memories of Jazmin and Andres were on the minds of many citizens. Cell phones and e-mails buzzed away in a sort of electronic protest grapevine, urging residents to boycott the official celebration. "Juarez is in mourning, NO to the grito," read one message. "The city will always be in mourning when it loses one of its residents," said Last week, Jazmin and Andres were buried at separate funerals, with Jazmin's burial preceded by a mass officiated by Auxiliary Bishop Guadalupe Torres. At Jazmin's funeral, a large crowd watched a white dove fly to the heavens and heard a mariachi group strum songs like "Eternal Love" for a little girl whose life was unfathomably cut short. Jazmin's mother and uncle gave thanks to the public and press for standing by them in their hour of crisis. Accorded the status of a hero, Andres' funeral procession was escorted by a police honor guard. Ciudad Juarez's city council and outgoing Mayor Hector "Teto" Murguia jointly agreed to name a street after Andres Castro Azcarate and possibly give his surviving children financial support. The officials also agreed to recognize Abel Guajardo, who survived the attempt to rescue Jazmin. In a city beset by innumerable tragedies, residents are claiming two of their own as exemplary citizens in a time of social, economic and political troubles. Sources: Lapolaka.com, September 13 and 14, 2007. Norte, September 12, 14, 15, 2007. Articles by Linda Mendoza, Salvador Castro, and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, September 11, 12, 14, 15, 2007. Fumes, Frustration and Fury at Border Crossings Frayed nerves, hot tempers and sharp words are in abundance these days at border crossings in the Paso del Norte region. In scenes reminiscent of the days following the 9-11 attacks, some motorists have waited recently for up to 2-3 hours to cross from Mexico into the United States. Even the so-called "fast lane" that theoretically allows pre-screened border crossers willing to pay a hefty annual fee to zip across the border has witnessed delays of 10-15 minutes. The causes for the delays are multiple: tightened US security checks, limited inspection personnel, bridge fare increases, computer breakdowns and construction projects. In a sister city defined by binational social relationships and cross-border commercial transactions, many are sounding the alarm bell about negative impacts to local economies and lives. "The number of customers has gone down considerably," affirmed Ciudad Juarez market seller Jorge Puentes Martinez. "The long lines on the bridges have resulted in the decrease of tourists that come." Lisa Johnson, a US tourist, agreed that the lengthy border crossing times discourage US residents from spending their dollars in Mexico. "We love to come over and buy arts and crafts but the wait of more than two hours on the bridge makes you not want to come," Johnson said. If long waits on the US-Mexico border aren’t enough, Mexican truckers coming from the south now sometimes confront two-hour delays south of Ciudad Juarez at checkpoints set up to detect illegal drugs, arms and Central American migrants. Ciudad Juarez is not the only potential loser in the border crossing back-up. A study by Texas A&M Professor Michael Patrick found that an estimated 30-40 percent of economic activity on the Texas border is linked to Mexico, whose citizens frequently shop in US cities like El Paso. Patrick’s study contended that a 10 percent reduction in border crossings could result in sales reductions of more than one percent, slashes in local tax collections of about two percent and a rise in the unemployment rate of one percent. The Border Trade Alliance, a cross-border business promotion organization, is studying the economic impact in El Paso-Ciudad Juarez of the crossing times, an issue which concerns locals at a moment when talk of recession is in the air. Besides the economy, border crossing delays impact the environment and public health. Long lines of idling vehicles emit more exhaust fumes, contributing to the pollution of an already dirty airshed and threatening the health of border crossing workers and street vendors who spend hours every day on the international bridges. In 2001, two children died after being exposed to excessive levels of carbon monoxide that built up in the family vehicle as it was returning to El Paso from Ciudad Juarez. A US construction project to expand the number of vehicle lanes on the Santa Fe Bridge crossing, which is scheduled for completion in 2009, is partly credited for boosting the number of pedestrians using the bridge from about 17,000 to about 22,000 every day, thus exposing more people to automobile fumes. The spike in pedestrian crossings also coincides with a City of El Paso-mandated fare increase of sixty cents on the Santa Fe Bridge for vehicles; pedestrian fees of thirty-five cents remained unchanged. Although most traffic tie-ups are occurring on crossings into the United States, bottlenecks on El Paso streets heading into Mexico have also unsettled drivers in recent days. A decision by the El Paso City Council to raise crossing fees for commercial trucks from $15 to $17.50 per carrier prompted Ciudad Juarez transportation companies to launch a "boycott" of the Zaragoza Bridge that normally handles a large amount of the export goods-laden traffic. Instead of the Zaragoza Bridge, more truckers are planning to use the so-called "Free Bridge", or the Bridge of the Americas. On the Mexican side, glitches in the custom agency’s computer system that inspects returning trucks recently congested El Paso approaches to the Bridge of the Americas. "I am hysterical. I'm running out of gasoline, and I want to go to the bathroom. I was planning to look for tickets to the Mana (top Mexican rock group) concert and I can't get out of here," said Gabriela Montezuma, who was trapped in the traffic. The border crossing headaches in the Paso del Norte region are not new or unexpected. For instance, a 2005 report by the University of Texas at El Paso’s Border Region Monitoring Project found that truck traffic from Mexico into El Paso jumped from 597,000 vehicles in 1997 to 720,000 in 2004. A 2006 report by the US-based Good Neighbor Environmental Board, a presidential advisory group, blamed under-funded budgets for long vehicle lines and waits, shipping delays and environmental problems. Along the entire US-Mexico border, passenger vehicle crossings rose from 66.4 million in 1994 to 91.3 million in 2004, while truck crossings surged from 2.9 million to 4.5 million during the same time period, which coincided with the first ten years of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Border gridlock has stirred some officials to action, with mixed results. A recent extension of hours at New Mexico's Santa Teresa Port of Entry just outside Ciudad Juarez-El Paso added another crossing option, though 2-3 hours crossing times were occasionally reported at Santa Teresa as well. Last month, the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security issued a directive to its agents urging that crossing times be speeded-up when possible. Some view expanded public transportation as one solution to the border crossing mess. For the first time since 2004, a bus line between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez is providing service. Operated by Dos Naciones, a company owned by Omnibus de Mexico, the bus system is expected to handle between 1,200-1,500 passengers until 7 pm every day. Nonetheless, current US policies do not provide extra incentives for bus use. Buses are not given special "fast lanes" and must line up in the same traffic with cars carrying only one passenger. Long-distance lines have long transported passengers from the Ciudad Juarez bus station to terminals in El Paso, but companies like Greyhound's Americanos occasionally leave passengers stranded at the border if immigration and security checks take a lot of time, which they frequently do, especially when inspectors suddenly close stations even as long lines wriggle out the station door. The Border Legislative Conference, a group of lawmakers from the US and Mexico, is proposing a two-pronged solution to border tie-ups that utilizes both expanded public transportation and "smart" technology. Last week, the lawmakers proposed the construction of a light rail system between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. Additionally, the legislators advocate electronic manifests, finger-printing, security deposits and GPS technology to facilitate the traffic flow between the US and Mexico. "Through the use of technology the authorities can know who is getting on the train as well as their background in the country without the need of interrupting the flow of people on the border”, said Texas State Senator Elliot Shapleigh, who represents El Paso. The border lawmakers' group but did not release any initial cost estimates for the envisioned binational project. Additional Sources: Norte, September 7, 2007. Article by Norma E. Favela Munoz. El Diario de Juarez, June 13, 2007; August 26 and 27, 2007; September 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2007. Albuquerque Journal, August 27, 2007. Article by Jerry Pacheco. El Diario de El Paso, May 28, 2006 and August 19, 2007. Articles by Lorena Figueroa. El Paso Times, April 13, 2007; August 9, 2007; September 2, 2007. Articles by Louie Gilot. Albuquerque Tribune/Scripps Howard News Service. March 14, 2006. Article by James W. Brosnan. University of Texas at El Paso, November 2005. Controversy Mounts over Ciudad Juarez Curfew Set to go into effect on June 15, a citywide youth curfew in Ciudad Juarez is drawing legal opposition from non-governmental organizations. The measure, which follows the gradual implementation of curfews in different neighborhoods and districts of the city in recent weeks, prohibits any person below 18 years of age from being outside the home without adult supervision after 10 pm. The curfew complements a similar ordinance in neighboring El Paso that prohibits minors on the streets without adult chaperones after 11 pm. In a complaint filed this week with the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission (CEDH), more than 20 non-governmental organizations and representatives of neighborhood associations challenged the curfew on human rights and civil liberties grounds. The NGOs maintained that civil liberties can only be restricted by the President of the Republic with the consent of the federal Senate. Groups filing the CEDH complaint included the Paso del Norte Human Rights Center, Center for Youth Promotion and Advisement, Popular Independent Organization, Casa Amiga, and Caritas Diocesana, as well as residents of the Division del Norte, Altavista, Morelos and Oasis Revolution neighborhoods. In a June 14 open letter to the Ciudad Juarez community, a group of Ciudad Juarez sociologists also weighed in against the curfew and urged a broader public discussion of the issue. Oscar Altamirano, a member of the Paso Del Norte Human Rights Center, argued that the curfew suspends constitutional guarantees like the right of free transit. Curfew opponents also contended that the municipal ordinance doesn't specify what treatment will be accorded to the many working-class youths of 16-18 years of age who work the swing shift in maquiladora plants and late night hours in restaurants and stores. An additional argument against the curfew is that it will lead to police extortion of minors, who will be allowed to go free in return for bribes. Curfew violators are supposed to be transported to the social work department of the Ciudad Juarez city police department and held until their parents come to take them home. Prior to the NGOs' complaint, the CEDH opened a general file on the curfew. "Any restriction of transit is a delicate matter," said CEDH President Leopoldo Gonzalez Baeza, "but if after an investigation we find it is a positive measure we are going to support it and if there is the smallest complaint we are going to investigate it." The movement for a citywide youth curfew in Ciudad Juarez picked up steam earlier this year after a group of parents in the Oasis Revolution neighborhood, with the support of parish priest Mario Manriquez, launched a pilot curfew called "It's Better to be at Home after Ten." The goal of the program is to curb youth delinquency and cut down on violence affecting young people. Citing statistics from the Chihuahua Agency for Investigations and journalistic accounts, the local press recently reported that at least 44 minors were murdered in Ciudad Juarez from 2005 to late April 2007. Since 2005, the percentage of the city's murder victims which is made up of minors has steadily increased, almost doubling from 7.4 percent to 14.2 percent of total homicide victims. The police reports cited indicate that the majority of victims died in incidents linked to street gangs, but didn't explain if most victims were killed in the day or evening. Since the Oasis Revolution curfew, the program has been extended to an additional 51 neighborhoods and the downtown Avenida Juarez nightlife district. Mixed reports have surfaced about the partial curfew's impact so far. Some parents in Oasis Revolution and other sections of the city strongly support the program, praising the curfew for reducing delinquency, improving family relationships and arming parents with legal backing for effective discipline. "I agree with this program," said Ciudad Juarez resident Concepcion Robles. "What business does a minor have being outside his home after ten o'clock in the evening?" Chris Mears, spokesman for the El Paso Police Department, supported the Ciudad Juarez curfew as a tool to combat underage drinking on Avenida Juarez, a place where minors from El Paso and southern New Mexico are accustomed to drinking in popular bars and discos. Illegal drugs are also widely available in the zone. US minors picked up in Ciudad Juarez for curfew violations will be returned to the El Paso Police Department under an agreement between the Ciudad Juarez and El Paso law enforcement. On the critical side, some youths and adults report arbitrary detentions and attempted police shakedowns. Others complain of the lack of police patrols to enforce the curfew. A resident of Oasis Revolution, Jorge M Torres, posted a letter on the LaPolaka Internet news site that questioned the right of Father Manriquez and pro-curfew parents to speak for the entire community. Torres contended that the curfew was misplaced, wrongly targeting youths for the acts of others. Referring to his own experience, Torres added that the theft of his SUV in the neighborhood was committed by professionals who “probably count on some police protection.” The curfew has become an issue in the Ciudad Juarez municipal election campaign. Mayoral candidates were invited to attend a June 10 event in the Oasis Revolution neighborhood to sign a document in support of the sector curfew in the presence of Father Manriquez and residents. Francisco Javier Franco, The candidate for the Party of Democratic Revolution, was among the signatories. While most mayoral hopefuls backed the Oasis Revolution curfew, the Mexican Green Party's Hector Sandoval opposed it. Labeling the curfew a "desperate measure," Sandoval proposed more educational and recreational opportunities for young people. Critics have slammed the curfew as a poor substitute for focused, professional law enforcement, and as a diversion away from providing social and economic alternatives for Ciudad Juarez's young people. "(Authorities) forget that the factors behind delinquency are also found in the lack of sporting and cultural spaces for young people," said the Paso del Norte Human Rights Center's Altamirano. "They also forget that young people need secure work spaces, and not have to leave work at twelve o'clock at night, for example." Sources: La Jornada, June 14, 2007. Article by Ruben Villalpando.Frontenet.com, June 12, 2007. Article by Sergio Valdez. Norte, June 6, 11 and 14, 2007. Articles by Ricardo Espinoza, Linda Mendoza and Cesar Ruiz. LaPolaka.com, June 3, 10 and 14, 2007. El Diario de Juarez, April 22 and June 13, 2007. El Diario de El Paso, June 2, 2007. Article by Aileen B.Flores. Rural Water/Energy Conflict Intensifies A long-running battle over electricity rates intensified in recent days as tempers flared and violence ensued in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. The conflict pits Mexico's Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) against small farmers who've waged a five-year payment strike in protest of what they charge are excessive electricity rates for pumping water from the ground. Disputed versions surround an incident in the municipality of Ascension that left one protestor run over, CFE official Ricardo Caraveo beaten up and several CFE vehicles burned or damaged last weekend. The violent flare-up happened in an area south of the US-Mexico border that has been a center of farmer protests. Miguel Angel Flores Ugalde, CFE superintendent for the Casa Grandes zone, accused a group of farmers led by Armando Villareal Martha of attacking CFE employees who were on their way to Ciudad Juarez to help repair an electrical substation. Vowing to press legal charges against the alleged attackers, Flores called on state and municipal authorities to provide security for his personnel or face a continued shut-down of CFE offices in northern Chihuahua. Villareal, who is running for a legislative post in this year's Chihuahua state elections, had a different account of the Ascension confrontation. According to the head of the National Agro-Dynamic Organization, farmers were trying to stop a large group of CFE employees from cutting off power to water wells when CFE trucks were deployed in a bid to evict the protestors. In the confusion, a CFE truck reportedly driven by Ricardo Caraveo ran over and injured 26-year-old Jesus Nazareth Diaz. Enraged farmers then allegedly beat up the CFE official. Villareal, who was jailed during the early period of the Fox administration for leading militant farm protests, blamed CFE employees for burning their own truck in order to justify the intervention of the Mexican army in the conflict. The CFE’s Flores denied that his employees were trying to cut off power to water wells. He also accused Villareal of assaulting another, unnamed CFE employee about three weeks ago. In recent days, however, the CFE has pulled the plug on power for water wells in a wide region of northern, central and southern Chihuahua. A commission of the Chihuahua State Legislature is attempting to broker a solution to farmers' debts with the CFE. Chihuahua legislator Jose Antonio Comaduran Amaya attributes the crisis to chronic drought, overexploitation of underground aquifers, energy price hikes and the federal government's abandonment of the rural sector. The CFE estimates that agricultural use accounts for 61 percent of electrical consumption in Chihuahua. As Chihuahua lawmakers reached out to the CFE, another large group of farmers led by the Barzon organization gathered June 4 outside the federal agency's offices in the central town of Delicias June in an effort to settle debts and get their wells pumping again. Fernando Galindo Arguijo, the CFE superintendent for the zone, later indicated a willingness to accept an initial 10 percent payment, though no final agreement with the growers was announced. According to protest leader Villareal, farmers in the northern section of the state were mounting patrols to ward off additional CFE power cut-offs. Sources: El Diario de Chihuahua, June 6, 2007. Articles by Manuel Quezada and Erika Gonzalez. La Jornada, June 5, 2007. Article by Ruben Villalpando Irregularities in Bus Crash Exposed Survivors of the deadly April 14 bus-truck crash near Ciudad Juarez that killed 25 people and injured 21 are healing their wounds, mourning their loved ones and trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. Ten of the victims were children, including 12-year-old Pamela Garcia and 10 year-old Luis Ramon Garcia. "I am getting by more or less," said Luis Garcia Calderon, father of the two dead children. "I am sad, but we are going to endure it with strength-finding strength where there is none," The Perils of "Public" Transport: Part One In Chihuahua, Camargo and Jimenez are in a state of mourning this week. More than 20 residents from the two towns figure prominently on the list of victims of an early morning bus-truck collision April 14 on the Pan American Highway near Ciudad Juarez. The deadly crash, which killed as many as 28 people and injured 21 others, happened after the driver of an Omnibus de Mexico bus rear-ended a 15-ton tractor trailer. Spilled diesel fuel from the truck rapidly caught fire and spread to the bus, trapping passengers who included young children. "This is the worst accident that has occurred on the highways of Chihuahua in recent years" said Navil Buchain Galvan, inspector general of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) in Ciudad Juarez. According to Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Rodriguez, many of the victims were burned beyond recognition. "With respect to the remains, there are 25 burned victims and seemingly 28 people who lost their lives," Gonzalez said. "Since there is a mixture of remains, it could take weeks and in some cases months to establish the exact number of victims." After initially stating that 28 victims died in the accident, Gonzalez’s office later dropped the number to 25 probable victims. At least ten of the victims were children who ranged from 22 months to 13 years of age. Jose Luis Otero Diaz, a Ciudad Juarez city council alternate and advisor to the municipal police force, was among the known dead. Two young men from Camargo who were traveling north on the bus to Ciudad Juarez to work in the maquiladora industry, Armando Galaviz and Fermin Gausin Mendoza, were credited with rescuing an older woman from the burning vehicle and breaking windows that allowed other passengers to escape the death trap. An official PFP report blamed the crash on driver Everardo Reverde Soria, who was presumably killed in the wreck. A second driver, Jose Refugio Flores Rodriguez, was also likely killed. The police report cited distraction, speeding and tail-gating as causes of the fatal mishap. The April 14 tragedy raised new questions about the safety of inter-city mass transportation in the border region and in Mexico. Sandra Montijo Dubrule, the president of the Ciudad Juarez-based Maquiladora Civil Association, an industry trade group, called for better monitoring of bus companies and their drivers. A similar opinion was voiced by Father Ignacio Villanueva, the priest of Ciudad Juarez's downtown cathedral. Since the bus had a 38-passenger capacity, controversy immediately surfaced about its 51 reported passengers. Early reports suggested that extra passengers were standing in the aisles when the bus crashed into the commercial truck, whose driver apparently fled the scene. But Saul Varela Rodriguez, press spokesman for the Ominbus company in Ciudad Juarez, denied that overcrowding was an issue. "We have spoken with a number of the survivors and at no moment have they told us that there were passengers standing up all the way from Camargo," Varela said, adding that the company knew of 21 dead victims and not the 28 victims mentioned in press and government accounts. Children under four years of age are not charged bus tickets and not registered on the passenger list, Varela said. In Mexico, it's common for adults to travel on buses with small children on their laps. When inter-city bus service was upgraded in Mexico years ago, first-class buses were expected to sell only the amount of tickets that correspond to the number seats on individual buses. Still, many drivers collect extra money by making unscheduled stops along highways to pick up passengers. It's not known if the drivers of the doomed Omnibus vehicle were fishing for extra fares. Varela said that Omnibus will pay for victims' funerals, hospital costs and lost luggage. The company holds a $75,000-dollar medical insurance policy for each passenger, he affirmed. Pending an investigation, sanctions against Omnibus, as well as the owner of the truck from which the driver supposedly fled, could be forthcoming, according to the PFP. In the aftermath of the April 14 disaster, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza dispatched members of his cabinet to Ciudad Juarez in order to coordinate emergency support services for victims and their families. The Omnibus crash ranked among the deadliest Mexican bus accidents that have claimed numerous lives in recent years. On April 15, another eight people were killed and 30 injured when a Futura bus that was traveling from Puerto Vallarta to Guadalajara left the road. Almost one year to the day of the most recent accident near Ciudad Juarez, another bus wreck on the same stretch of the Pan American Highway killed 9 people and injured 21 others. As Frontera Nortesur was going to press, at least four people were reported killed and 36 others injured after an ADO company bus crashed into a canyon in Veracruz state. Strangely enough, the accident happened on the one year anniversary of a similar tragedy in Veracruz that killed 57 persons who were aboard an overcrowded bus. In late 2004, a so-called "pirate" bus, or one that did not have official authorization, crashed on the highway outside Ciudad Juarez, causing the deaths of 12 passengers. Norte, April 15 and 16, 2007. Articles by Angel Zubia Garcia and Jorge Chairez Daniel. El Diario de Juarez, April 14, 15, 16, 17, 2007. Articles by Armando Rodriguez, Mauricio Rodriguez, Luz del Carmen Sosa, and editorial staff. El Paso Times, April 15 and 17, 2007. Articles by Adriana M. Chavez and Louie Gilot. La Jornada, April 15, 16 and 17, 2007. Articles by Ruben Villalpando, Miroslava Breach, Jalisco edition, and the Notimex news agency. El Universal/AP, April 15, 2007. Lapolaka.com, December 7, 2004; April 14, 15, 16, 17, 2007. Border Activism in Full Throttle With spring in the air, activists from different social movements are once again taking their struggles to the streets in the Paso del Norte region. On March 31, hundreds of people participated in a march and rally in El Paso, Texas, in commemoration of the annual Cesar Chavez Day. Moving through the historic Segundo Barrio, marchers from farmworker, labor, student, and neighborhood organizations chanted slogans and carried signs in support of worker and immigrant rights and against the El Paso City Council's downtown revitalization plan that could displace low-income residents. Halting at the Border Agricultural Workers Center near the US-Mexico borderline, participants heard speakers, listened to mariachi music and dined on tacos made with the corn tortilla, a Mexican staple that has become the symbol of a widening struggle for food sovereignty and economic justice. March 31 is now celebrated in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez as the Day of the Taco. A prominent banner reading "Justice for Immigrants" was draped from the center, which is located across the street from a US government facility where undocumented immigrants are deported to Mexico. Among the speakers was Silvestre Galvan, who is known as one of the historic "Dorados" of the United Farm Workers of America co-founded by Cesar Chavez. Describing how his relatives left Ciudad Juarez to pick cotton decades ago, Galvan said that his family first met Chavez in 1962 and joined the budding labor leader for what turned into years of farm organizing battles that raged up and down California's San Joaquin Valley. Holding aloof a Virgin of Guadalupe standard that was once carried to the California state capital of Sacramento, Galvan said that Chavez's efforts eliminated 12-hour work days for farm laborers, resulted in the winning of break and lunch times and led to wage improvements. Much remains to be done, the veteran activist added. "We continue in the struggle. The struggle is not over," Galvan said. "There are people and politicians who say that the struggle is over. What a surprise we give them when we conduct these marches." Carlos Marentes, the long-time leader of the El Paso-based Border Agricultural Workers Union and Bracero Project, criticized the exclusion of farm and dairy workers from the new minimum wage hike passed by the Democratic Party-dominated New Mexico State Legislature and signed into law by Governor Bill Richardson last month. Many farmworkers who live in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez labor in southern New Mexican fields. "History repeats itself," Marentes said, adding that farmworkers have been systematically excluded from labor legislation dating back to the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in the 1940s. "We will keep fighting. It's up to us,” Marentes said. “For many years we have relied that changes will come up from the farmworkers and their families and the communities themselves," Irma Montoya, the director of La Mujer Obrera, an organization of former garment workers, called for greater consideration of the rights of women workers. Montoya sketched out a community development plan that La Mujer Obrera is implementing to revitalize El Paso's old garment district and establish the envisioned "Mexican Town" in an area of the city that suffers from trade-driven industrial decay. Scheduled to kick off next November, La Mujer Obrera's plan involves the opening of a 40,000 square-foot warehouse to house micro-enterprises that will commercialize goods from producers across the border. A museum, commercial kitchen, media center, and trading company round off the community incubator, which Montoya defined as the "prototype" of what could become a larger development plan. "There are different plans here in El Paso. There is the Paso del Norte Plan, the development of Fort Bliss, the School of Medicine. But none of them include limited English-speaking women workers. Our plan is the only one that will give space to all the Mexican community," Montoya said. In neighboring Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, schools began the two-week Easter and Holy Week holidays in the wake of a strike by thousands of teachers shut down dozens of schools the last week, according to local news media. The teachers were protesting the Mexican Congress' passage of a new law that extends by 10 years the minimum retirement age eligibility for about 2.5 million federal workers enrolled in the national ISSTTE system. It's likely the teacher protests will resume in one form or another after the scheduled resumption of classes later in April. In El Paso, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles will give an open air mass April 14 in support of immigrant rights. Some groups are busy organizing additional pro-immigrant and pro-labor actions for May 1 and May 2. Billed as the second Great American Boycott in remembrance of last year's massive pro-immigrant legalization protest in the United States, the May Day action will refocus attention on the unresolved issue of legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Still in the process of organization and definition, the May 2 protest in Mexico, which could feature a national work stoppage, is expected to protest the new ISSSTE law as well as the Calderon Administration's economic policies in general. Surveying the movement upsurge, veteran labor leader Marentes said that student, campesino, worker and anti-war movements are breaking out all over the place. "We are entering into an era of social transformation, and all of us are part of that change," Marentes added. Is the Paso del Norte Prepared for New Flooding? Seeking to avoid a repeat of last year's devastating flooding, authorities on both sides of the Paso del Norte border region are strategizing and implementing new flood control projects. Some citizens, meanwhile, are taking matters into their own hands. At a Ciudad Juarez meeting this month, representatives of different Mexican government agencies analyzed the readiness of the border city to confront the type of flooding that damaged or destroyed more than 4,000 homes and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure and property damage last summer. The losses exceeded Ciudad Juarez's entire 2006 municipal budget of about $200 million dollars. Efren Matamoros Barraza, director of Ciudad Juarez's civil protection department, warned that 70 local dikes are not capable of containing the same amount of water which fell in 2006, and that some structures could overflow in the event of heavy rains. Matamoros said that some of the small dams are plugged with mud and still even contain water from last year. Trash, debris and brush that are accumulating in the dikes compound the problem. "With any amount of wetness or rain the dikes immediately fill up,” said public works official Luis Soria, adding that workers are drying out the small dams in sections before draining. Sergio Chaparro, chief of the weather service at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, has warned that changing climatic conditions could trigger rains of equal or greater magnitude than the storms that lashed the binational Paso del Norte region in 2006. Incomplete storm-water drain projects put an estimated 250,000 people who reside near the Juarez mountains in an especially vulnerable position, according to Rosario Diaz Arellano, director of the Municipal Institute of Research and Planning, Diaz said 25 percent of previously-planned storm-water drain projects are finished, with a "very important" investment required to terminate the remaining 75 percent of needed works. Other high-risk zones identified by the official include El Barreal, Riberas del Bravo, Estrella del Poniente and El Mezquital. A document from the federal National Water Commission (CNA) recommends directing “immediate structural attention” to the Anapra neighborhood on the southern New Mexico border. For the entire city, the CNA proposes an intense rehabilitation and maintenance of arroyos and dikes as well as the construction of 25 new dikes. The federal agency recommends relocating residents of flood-prone areas adjacent to the Rio Grande on the Mexican side of the river. Community Protest Flooding fears prompted one Ciudad Juarez community to take direct action last week. Led by Principal Raymundo Escalante Vela, 300 students from State Secondary School 3061 in the Luis Olague neighborhood destroyed a cyclone fence that that was constructed next to their school by several foreign-owned maquiladora plants. In an action that was videotaped and broadcast on the Internet by one of Ciudad Juarez's news websites, the students tore down the fence to protest construction of a new cement canal located just feet from the school. Luis Olague was one of the neighborhoods that suffered severe flood damage last year. Escalante charged that diverting the natural flow of the Indio Arroyo and threatens the school grounds with possible flooding and exposes students to the stench of wastewater. "We want them to leave us alone and let us work," Escalante said, "and to not touch the school building." The activist school master and his students scored an initial victory when the city's municipal development department notified the maquiladoras that they face closure because the new canal does not have a permit allowing it to be constructed next to the school. Industrial and residential construction abutting the Indio Arroyo in the high-risk Luis Olague zone was approved by previous Ciudad Juarez municipal administrations. El Paso Plans In neighboring El Paso, Texas, meanwhile, city officials are conducting Given a green light by the El Paso City Council and Public Service Board, a new storm-water management utility will have to get final City Council approval in April in order to begin operations in 2008 at the earliest. A 1991 attempt to enact a similar utility district proved politically unpopular in the arid city and probably contributed to the defeat of then Mayor Susie Azar's reelection bid. "It was called the rainwater run-off tax," said El Paso Mayor John Cook. "Had we pursued the idea, we probably would not have had the significant amount of damage the city suffered in flood 2006." Last year's flood damage in El Paso was blamed on an inadequate flood control infrastructure and, in some cases, construction of buildings too close to arroyos. On multiple occasions, the Rio Grande that divides El Paso and Ciudad Juarez overflowed its banks but an empty floodplain on the US side was credited with preventing property damage. Still, the US Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), concluded that the height of the levees should be raised to safeguard against a 100-year storm. Sally Spener, spokesperson for the US Section of the IBWC, told Frontera NorteSur that the agency will start raising the levees and removing sediment from a segment of the Rio Grande in El Paso this spring. "The idea is to get as much as done as possible before the flood season," Spener said. According to Spener, the US and Mexican sections of the IBWC are working together on flood control improvements. Spener said one expected improvement is the decommissioning of the La Montada dam in Ciudad Juarez that overflowed last summer and threatened downtown El Paso with flooding, prompting an emergency evacuation. Some of the residents downstream from the dam could be relocated, she added. "It is vital that the Mexican (IBWC) section be informed of rising water levels upstream," Spener said. "Data exchange is extremely important." In addition to the $1.2 million of existing funds that will be spent on the US IBWC's springtime project, Texas Congressmen Silvestre Reyes and Ciro Rodriguez got an extra $10 million for river dredging in El Paso slipped into the emergency war supplemental appropriation under consideration for Iraq and Afghanistan. Additional sources: Lapolaka.com., March 21, 2007. Norte, March 19, 21 and 22, 2007. Articles by Salvador Castro and Pablo Hernandez Batista. Diario de Juarez, March 15 and 19, 2007. Articles by Hugo Chavez, Juan Manuel Cruz and Pedro Sanchez Briones. El Paso Times, February 22, 2007; March 11 and 19, 2007. Articles by David Crowder, Adriana M.Chavez and editorial staff. A Border City Marks Iraq War Anniversary On the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, residents of the border city of El Paso, Texas, had many opportunities to reflect on how the seemingly far-off conflict hits home. In the days surrounding the March 17 anniversary, more troops from a local military base were scheduled for deployment in the war zone; soldiers' wives networked for mutual support; relatives worried about the fates of loved ones abroad, and anti-war activists voiced opposition to the Bush Administration's Iraq policies. The weekly Border Observer newspaper included a local angle in a story about a Pentagon study that found thirty-five percent of Iraq war veterans received mental health care treatment during the first year of returning home. On March 16, about 400 soldiers from the 31st Combat Support Hospital stationed at El Paso's Biggs Army Field were sent to Wisconsin for pre-deployment training. Expected to be in Iraq in a few weeks, the unit will specialize in treating wounded Iraqi detainees- including insurgents. Some military personnel describe the mission as essential in a campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people. "We're heading to Iraq to provide health care to people who have been detained by Coalition troops, "said Colonel Roberto Nang, commander of the medical unit. “(Detainees) are not necessarily prisoners of war. In some cases, they are people subject to interrogation or have committed minor crimes." Soldier Amador Medina, who previously has seen duty in Iraq, suddenly found himself headed back to the Middle East as part of the 31st Combat Support Hospital's new deployment. Acknowledging that he was feeling nervous, Medina nevertheless expressed confidence in the mission and his eventual safe return home. Several dozen war opponents, meanwhile, gathered in El Paso's Memorial Park on March 17. Two "Impeach Bush" signs were visible at the event sponsored by Border Peace Presence, a local group. While small in numbers, the El Paso protest was significant because of the military's huge role in the border city's economy and civic life. Two big military bases, Fort Bliss and Biggs Air Field, drive much of the modern economy in El Paso, and many working-class Chicano and Mexican immigrant youths enlist in the armed forces. Since late 2005, Border Peace Presence has held a weekly peace vigil outside federal offices in downtown El Paso, according to Merlyn Heyman, a spokesperson for the group. Heyman said members of military families who are afraid to openly speak out about Iraq sometimes approach the group to say "thank you" for publicly voicing dissent. "They know what this war means," Heyman added. The March 17 action coincided with weekend protests that drew hundreds of thousands people worldwide. Large US rallies were held in Washington, D.C. and New York, while smaller but spirited demonstrations were reported in San Francisco, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and other cities. Internationally, antiwar demonstrations were held in Australia, Greece, Chile, Turkey, and Denmark. A demonstration of 400,000 people was held in Madrid, Spain. Military veterans of different ages participated in the El Paso protest. In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Father Hinde, a World War Two veteran, explained how he flew over Nagasaki three days after the atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city only to observe "a brown spot on earth where a port was." Later ordained as a Catholic priest, Father Hinde worked first in Peru and then in El Salvador in 1980, when fierce repression was unleashed against the left, popular movements and church sectors. "I'd like to suggest another Salvador option, that of Archbishop Romero...not to aid repressive governments," Father Hinde urged Eric Murillo, a former sergeant in the US Army once stationed in Italy, contended that most soldiers he knew supported the Iraq invasion in 2003, but backing for both the mission and President George W. Bush has since dropped significantly among the military rank-and-file. Most of his friends who are still in Iraq are "just trying to survive and get out," Murillo said. "All justifications for Iraq are done with. The war should be called to an end,” he added. On the Iraq war anniversary, no extra US security measures were visible on the Santa Fe Bridge that connects El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, though vehicular traffic (and exhaust fumes) was backing up by late in the afternoon of March 17. Additional sources: La Jornada, March 18, 2007. Articles by Bulldozing the Memories of Murdered Women In the run-up to International Women's Day 2007, the memories of murdered women in Ciudad Juarez are being erased. Workmen have started clearing a portion of the old cotton field where the tortured, raped and mutilated remains of 8 young women were discovered in November 2001. Located near the site of the new US Consulate in the border city, the cotton field is suddenly in the middle of a hot commercial zone. New hotels and other establishments catering to the diplomatic and immigration services offered by the US government are expected to open soon for business. Currently, 8 big crosses erected in memory of the murder victims mark a section of the cotton field. Now a landmark, the field is almost a required stop for foreign journalists, filmmakers, human rights and women's activists, and others who reclaim the memories of the young women. Mothers and other relatives of the victims hold memorials in the cotton field. For almost five years, Chihuahua state law enforcement authorities misidentified three of the victims as Guadalupe Luna de la Rosa, Veronica Martinez and Barbara Aracely Martinez, all of whom are now considered disappeared persons. Thanks to the efforts of the Argentine Anthropological Forensic Team, two of the victims were correctly identified last year as Merlin Elizabeth Rodriguez Saenz and Maria Rocina Galicia Meraz, both of whom vanished in 2001. The eighth cotton field victim remains unidentified. "One does not forget," said Javier Camacho, the new owner of the cotton field property under development. "It's sad what happened, but nothing is gained by the crosses, and one way of stopping this is by developing the border." Although the cotton field case and scores of other rape-murders in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City stand unsolved, some local officials and business leaders have increasingly grumbled about the so-called "myth" or "black legend" of femicide that is allegedly giving Ciudad Juarez a bad name on the world stage. Especially within the last year, Ciudad Juarez media have downplayed the women's murders. A long-running website that publicized the cases of disappeared women and men, pesquisasenlinea.org, mysteriously vanished from cyberspace, as did the long-running femicide section of the Norte newspaper. Readers of major Ciudad Juarez news websites would have had no idea that Jennifer Lopez was recognized by Amnesty International in a Berlin ceremony this month for her role in the upcoming Gregory Nava movie Bordertown, a fictional film about the Juarez women's murders. While JLO's award received ample attention in the Mexican national and international press, it did not even register a blip on several Ciudad Juarez news web sites. Still, even the leading El Diario newspaper has had trouble swallowing the official story surrounding three men first accused last year of orchestrating the cotton field murders. In a February 18 editorial, El Diario questioned the authorities' case and recounted the long history of police fabricating femicide scapegoats in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City. Late last week, the Ciudad Juarez press was also forced to report on a possible new femicide after the body of a semi-naked woman was discovered on the morning of February 23 in an empty near the city's international airport. Like numerous past cases, the woman's body was found by playing children. Although the unidentified woman was found in various stages of undress, a preliminary official report claimed she was not murdered. Neighbors said it was the second time that a dead body had been discovered in the same lot. Land Speculation, Gentrification Visit a Border City Recovering from the Borderland's Little Katrina Legendary for its sparse rainfall and blistering dry heat, the Paso del Norte region of the US-Mexico borderlands was jolted by torrential storms and floods in late July and early August. Living in an area that normally receives only about 9 inches of rainfall per year, residents were drenched with nearly the same amount of precipitation in just a few days. Streets were turned into small raging rivers, homes crumbled under the weight of water, mud crashed into houses, and land peeled away in the sheets of rain. The deluge followed a July 6 storm that also disrupted life in the border zone. According to the US Drought Monitor, 6 inches of rain clobbered the El Paso area in the 7-day period ending on August 5. Assessments of the damage to human life and property are still in progress, but preliminary reports from the press, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and residents sketch a portrait of widespread property destruction and loss of family and public patrimony in Ciudad Juarez , southern New Mexico and El Paso County , Texas . "From what we have seen, (Ciudad Juarez) resembles a mined zone- as if there had been a war in our city," said Gabriel Flores Miramontes, the president of the Ciudad Juarez branch of the Canacintra business association. In Ciudad Juarez , about 5,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, while scores of schools, businesses and public places were similarly effected. In the rural Juarez Valley south of the city, more than 1,500 acres suffered crop damage, according to Mexican press reports. Gonzalo Bravo, spokesman for the binational, Ciudad Juarez-based Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) told Frontera NorteSur that about 50 percent of the existing paved roads in Ciudad Juarez were damaged. At one point or another, more than 10,000 people were forced to flee their homes on both sides of the border. At least 6 people have died in Mexico and the United States from causes attributed to storms since July 6. Ciudad Juarez 's poor neighborhoods, or colonias, which are often built in environmentally unsound zones prone to flooding, suffered the worst impact. "People in the colonias remain afraid, because their homes are on the verge of falling apart," said Felix Perez, the Ciudad Juarez representative of the Rio Bravo Environmentalist Alliance. "There was damage in the whole city, but most of it was in the colonias," Perez said, adding that the practice of past municipal administrations granting land titles in dangerous zones aggravated the risks to many people. Up against a potential catastrophe, Mexican authorities evacuated hundreds of residents to several shelters located in safer sections of the city, and announced that hundreds of families will have to be permanently relocated. Liz Flores, the Ciudad Juarez director of the Roman Catholic-affiliated Caritas relief organization, said most of the people facing relocation still don't know where their new homes will be situated. "They don't have answers," she said. Stressing that many "victims are in shock," Flores said some people confronted an added horror: looting. According to the community activist, about 80 percent of the flood refugees found shelter with relatives, friends and neighbors in order to stay close to their homes. "People want to be near their houses to guard against looting," she said. Caritas and other organizations are concentrating on helping victims survive the immediate crisis, but Flores predicted that the "biggest problem" is still to come if the shelters close and aid dries up without people knowing where and how they will be rebuild their lives. Some people risk losing their jobs because of the necessity of attending to family and home matters stemming from the flood crisis, Flores added.
DAMAGE ON THE US SIDE TOO The Paso del Norte's flood disaster vividly demonstrated how Mother Nature does not respect borders. While storms wrought their greatest fury on the Mexican side of the border, they walloped the US side too. In El Paso County , hundreds of residents were evacuated from the communities of Vinton, Westway, Canutillo, and Socorro . A scary moment came when a small dam located in Ciudad Juarez about one mile from the US border threatened to break and flood downtown El Paso, prompting city authorities to temporarily evacuate more than 1,500 people from the historic Segundo Barrio and Chihuahuita neighborhoods. Farm workers gathered in the Border Agricultural Workers Center on El Paso 's Oregon Street were trapped by international bridge closures, many unable to return home to their families across the border in Ciudad Juarez . Carlos Marentes, center director, said the low-income seasonal workers faced financial losses by not being able to go out and pick chile in wet fields. The chile pickers are paid on a daily, piece-rate basis. According to a report in the El Paso Times, more than 1,500 homes, 50 businesses and 100 roads in the west Texas country sustained damage estimated at more than $100 million dollars. Up Interstate 10 in southern New Mexico's Dona Ana County, residents in low-income subdivisions and colonias were either forced from their homes or trapped inside because to the surging waters. "People were living as if they were on islands inside their mobile homes," said Veronica Carmona, an organizer with the Las Cruces-based Colonias Development Council. "People are going out with shoes in their hand," Carmona said. At the southern edge of Dona Ana County , on the Texas and Chihuahua borders,the 1,200 residents of the small, low-income community of Anapra weretemporarily evacuated from their homes. In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Jess Williams, public information officer for Dona Ana County , declined to give a damage estimate for the New Mexico sector of the Paso del Norte. Williams said authorities want to be careful about coming up with an accurate assessment, which is still underway. Williams said County personnel are preparing a report for the August 22 Dona Ana County Commissioners meeting. Confirming some property damage, Williams added that no injuries were reported in his county from the downpours. "We didn't get hit nearly as hard as El Paso County did," Williams insisted. "We were able to respond very quickly."
HOLES IN THE BORDER INFRASTRUCTURE Striking almost 15 years after negotiators for the North American Free Trade Agreement pledged to rehabilitate the border's underdeveloped infrastructure, the Paso del Norte flooding disaster nevertheless exposed continued, gaping holes in emergency response, storm control, infrastructure, environmental protection, and housing needs. Built decades ago and showing wear and tear, Ciudad Juarez 's flood control system of small dikes and dams was severely tested by rains not seen in the borderlands since the 1950s. A dam at El Paso 's Fort Bliss (which is undergoing a major troop expansion) overflowed, flooding homes in a central El Paso neighborhood. Ciudad Juarez 's notorious problem of illegal garbage dumping came back to haunt the city as trash washed from hillsides, empty lots and arroyos. On both sides of the border, stagnant pools of water collected, threatening to spread illness and mosquito-borne diseases. Authorities in both the US and Mexico are busy figuring out how to pay for the recovery costs, which will likely run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. State disaster declarations in Texas and New Mexico will help free up funds to assist local governments in paying for reconstruction, and a federal disaster declaration should provide another source of aid. In the US , some homeowners-but not all-have flood insurance to help them get back on their feet. In Mexico , however, hundreds of low-income homeowners who don't have flood insurance suffered complete losses. The preliminary cost estimate for new houses, repaved roads, upgraded dikes, storm wastewater systems, and repaired schools and public properties in Ciudad Juarez alone are tagged at more than $400 million dollars-roughly double the city's annual city budget. Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza and Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia Lardizabal have announced that about $35 million dollars in pledges from the three branches of Mexican government and the private sector for reconstruction aid have been made- a proverbial drop in the bucket of the required funding. "Obviously, what we have to do is look for extraordinary resources," Mayor Murguia said. "It's not a question of 20 or 30 million pesos, but much bigger goals that involve the three levels of government." The Ciudad Juarez mayor said international bridge fares collected by the Mexican federal government should be returned to the city to help pay for the clean-up and rehabilitation work. Squeezed by disaster, the Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua governments now face the hard choices of meeting emergency expenditures while cutting resources for other programs. The Mexican federal government is also strapped for funds, since its federal Natural Disaster Fund is overwhelmed with requests to pay for floods in Veracruz state and other places. The BECC's Gonzalo Bravo said his agency is prepared to offer technical advice and hear proposals for possible help from the San Antonio-based North American Development Bank (Nadbank), which was set up under a side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement to finance border environmental infrastructure projects. Acknowledging that the BECC and Nadbank were not set up to handle emergency situations, Bravo said the Paso del Norte crisis nevertheless marks a watershed. "We are ready to help them with the emergencies," Bravo said. Impacted communities in both Mexico and the United States can request the BECC's assistance in obtaining either loans or grants from the Nadbank, Bravo added. Kent Paterson New Controversies Erupt over Maquiladora Worker "Shortages" Like the old days of Ciudad Juarez 's assembly-for-export economic boom, factory owners say they confront a labor shortage. With an estimated 10,000 maquiladora jobs available, mainly in production worker positions, maquiladoras and labor contractors are offering sign-up bonuses, head-hunters' fees and even temporary boarding in hotels. Once again, buses are rumbling south to southern Veracruz state to scoop up willing hands for the assembly of global products in the hundreds of mainly foreign-owned factories that drive the local border economy. Other workers have arrived from southern Chiapas and Oaxaca states, bearing instructions from their new employers and hotel hosts not to talk to the press. Promoted by the Chihuahua Economic Development Council, a plan is afoot to construct temporary worker dormitories. Grappling with a purported worker deficit, representatives of the maquiladora industry are urging government to further subsidize production costs by getting more involved in the recruitment and housing of workers. Increasingly, industry spokespersons are following up on a statement made last December by Juan Carlos Olivares Ramos, vice president of the Maquiladora Civil Association ( AMAC ), who said, "It is the responsibility of the state to provide the necessary people to fill vacancies." Enjoying a cyclical upswing, the state of the maquiladora industry stands in stark contrast to the situation earlier in the decade when mass lay-offs, production shutdowns and plant relocations hit Ciudad Juarez hard. To be sure, maquiladoras play a pivotal role in the economies of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua state. Not only do the mainly foreign-owned plants provide an estimated 240,000 direct jobs in Ciudad Juarez alone, according to the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), but they also generate additional jobs and income for suppliers and local businesses. Mexico 's National Institute of Statistics, Informatics and Geography (INEGI) reports that Ciudad Juarez 's maquiladora industry had an economic impact of about $4.6 billion dollars in 2005, an amount double the Chihuahua state government's budget for 2006. Ciudad Juarez generates slightly more than 44 percent of Chihuahua state's gross product, while nationally, the border city of about 1.3 million people accounts for almost 2 percent of Mexico 's Gross National Product. Nonetheless, industry appeals for state support are stirring polemics by elected and appointed officials who contend that the maquiladora industry is seeking to benefit from the public dole while owing money to the public till. Helping fuel the criticism is the recent, widespread destruction caused by torrential storms in some of Ciudad Juarez 's poorer neighborhoods. Weather-wrought disaster is exposing the need to pay for major improvements in the city's infrastructure. About 15,000 homes are located in what are considered high-risk zones, and 43 percent of the city's streets are still unpaved. Jorge Alvarez Compean, Ciudad Juarez municipal secretary, recently criticized sectors of the maquiladora industry for legally challenging payment of a public utility tax. "They come to create wealth for their businesses, but they limit themselves to paying the property tax, while their transport trucks destroy the pavement," Alvarez said. Andres de Anda Martinez , coordinator of the National Action Party fraction of the Ciudad Juarez City Council, issued a similar criticism. Contending that the maquiladora industry benefits from the "cheap labor" of his city, the city councilman maintained that the maquiladora industry is less willing to participate in solutions to the city's problems." Striking a more conciliatory note, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia Lardizabal called on the federal government to assist with the settlement of new workers. "We need resources and these are not obtained with declarations," Mayor Murguia said. "Federalism should strengthen the municipalities not with prayers or good intentions, but with money to resolve the problems." In an attempt to insulate the maquiladora industry from new policies that could be implemented by the next presidential administration, the federal Economy Ministry is expected to publish a decree soon that will institutionalize tax incentives for the maquiladora industry One important, missing element from the growing debate over the maquiladora industry's reported worker shortage is the question of whether prevailing wages are sufficient to attract and retain new workers. The starting minimum wage for assembly line workers hovers around $4.50 per day, though maquiladora industry representatives argue that health benefits, cafeteria allowances, transportation subsidies and work bonuses push the real daily wage higher. New evidence strongly suggests that Ciudad Juarez 's labor "shortages" stem not from the unavailability of local workers but from the inability of workers to get ahead on maquiladora wages in a very expensive city. For starters, at least 126,000 people of working age lack formal employment in Ciudad Juarez , according to the IMSS and the Center for Economic and Social Information. In Chihuahua state, at least 394, 363 people are in a similar predicament. An additional, potential labor pool exists within the ranks of deportees from the United States , who are now offered maquiladora jobs by the Chihuahua State Employment Service and National Migration Institute. Despite the labor demand, large numbers of people are opting to work in the informal sector rather than on a factory assembly line. Many formally unemployed people actually earn a living as street vendors, stop light acrobats, fast food stand operators, domestic workers, yard cleaners, and prostitutes. Although they do not receive health or other benefits, workers in the informal sector report earning higher incomes while maintaining a degree of autonomy in their jobs. Cesar Ayala, a 21-year-old sandwich stand seller, said a steady business provides "money every day." Ayala said some maquiladora workers are following the fast food vendor's path, first testing the waters with weekend stands before jumping into the business altogether. "I have friends and neighbors that start out that way and later they leave when they see that they too can make it," said Ayala. While no immediate figures were available to compare informal incomes to factory worker incomes in Ciudad Juarez , a recent national study by the Center of Private Sector Economic Studies (CEESP) found that the average monthly income of informal workers was about $650 dollars. Nationally, 28.32 percent of all working age Mexicans labor in the informal sector, according to the CEESP. The research institute estimates that about 12% of Mexico 's Gross National Product is generated in the informal economy. In an election year, street vending is on the rise. According to Ciudad Juarez municipal records, the number of registered informal vendors increased from 10,000 at the end of 2005 to 11,583 by the middle of 2006. Most of the registered vendors run fast food stands. Nearly 15,000 Ciudad Juarez residents labor as domestic workers, earning a daily wage that ranges between $18 and $23 dollars, an income that's far higher than the base wage paid in the maquiladoras. Teresa Luna, the co-operator of the Good Living domestic worker employment agency, estimated that live-in house workers can net about $136 dollars every week. Francisca Torres, a single mother of a two-year-old child, said she quit her job a few weeks ago in a maquiladora plant where she earned about $40 dollars a week. Torres then went to work in a private home. "I earn in two or three days what I made in the maquiladora in a week," said Torres, "and I don't ignore my baby as much." According to the INEGI, 96.6 percent of Mexican domestic workers are women, but some men also prefer employment in private homes. Isidro Orozco cleans patios and gardens in the upscale Campestre neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez . Like Torres and other female domestic workers, Orozco discovered that he too could bring home more money by working outside the factory gates. "I earn more here than in the maquiladora or as a laborer in the farm harvest," Orozco said in a recent interview. Sources: Lapolaka.com, July 29, 2006 . El Diario de Juarez, July 21, 22 , 24, 27, 26, 28, 31, 2006. Articles by Ramon Salcido, Juan Olivas, Rocio Gallegos, Juan de Olivas, Gabriel Simental, H. Carrasco, Veronica Galan, Agencia Reforma, the Notimex news agency. Norte, July 24 and 31, 2006. Articles by Francisco Cabrera, Sonia Aguilar and Jorge Chairez. La Jornada, May 23, 2006 . Article by Ruben Villalpando. Mexican Border Checkpoint Criticized Representatives of Ciudad Juarez business and human rights groups are criticizing a highway checkpoint operated by the Federal Office of the Attorney General (PGR) south of the border city. Installed last April and outfitted with a high-tech gamma ray detection device, the new checkpoint is drawing fire for allegedly delaying commerical traffic, violating Mexicans' constitutional right of free travel and duplicating an already-existing, nearby inspection stop manned by the Mexican army. "We've pointed out for some time that the Precos (the Mexican army checkpoint south of Ciudad Juarez) causes problems for commerce and for those who travel by highway," said Antonio Andreu, the head of the Ciudad Juarez branch of the National Chamber of Commerce. "All the trucks that arrive there are inspected, and form lines for two or three hours." Andreu charged. "Besides the despotic treatment by soldiers, merchandise, clothes and drinks are sometimes damaged." Andreu questioned the efficiency of forcing people to undergo double inspections, and urged the authorities to better coordinate their actions. "If we had a lot of conflicts before, let's see if the siting of another (checkpoint) four miles away doesn't duplicate the problems," Andreu added. Hernan Ortiz, the leader of the Popular Independent Organization, a community group active in some low-income Ciudad Juarez neighborhoods, questioned the checkpoint from a human rights perspective. "Instead of doing an investigation, the (authorities) don't show respect for the law and trap people while they are traveling," Ortiz contended. "It could be that the checkpoints are showing results, but they are violating human rights" Information recently published by Ciudad Juarez's Norte newspaper reported that about one-and-a-half tons of illegal drugs found hidden in 20 vehicles have been confiscated by soldiers at the Precos checkpoint since the beginning of the year, with 25 suspects arrested. In contrast, less than 100 kilograms of marijuana have been seized at the new PGR checkpoint, which is located about 4 miles up the highway from the Precos. Rolando Alvarado Navarrete, the Chihuahua state PGR delegate, said federal officials will remove the new checkpoint if it bothers citizens. Alvarado said a team from the federal anti-corruption agency will arrive soon to do an on-site study of inspection times and citizen concerns. But Alvarado denied that the PGR checkpoint duplicates the army's, since the new inspection station concentrates on uncovering contraband with a high-tech device while the military's checkpoint emphasizes physical inspections. Travelers headed to Ciudad Juarez from the south frequently have their suitcases searched by soldiers staffing the Precos checkpoint. Alvarado added that the PGR checkpoint serves a strategic function, since it is located near roads known for their heavy transport of illegal drugs. "We can't install the gamma ray machine in any part of the highway," Alvarado maintained. "It requires space and an adequate place." Highway checkpoints south of Ciudad Juarez have a long and controversial history. Former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari ordered the elimination of Mexico's highway checkpoints in 1991 on constitutional grounds, but suddenly reinstalled them in 1993 . Human rights organizations protested the measure, but Teresa Jardi Alonso, then-Chihuahua PGR delegate, argued that the inspections were needed to control firearms and drug trafficking. In March 2001, former Mexican Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha, a general in the Mexican army, withdrew the PGR from the Ciudad Juarez checkpoint, which was then put under the control of the army. Sources: Norte, June 11, 2006. Articles by Sonia Aguilar, Carlos Huerta and Angel Zubia. More Computer School Monkey Business They stand as luring beams of light to the future. In Mexican city after city, privately-owned computer schools promise to train youth in the skills they need to survive in the high-tech global economy. But in Chihuahua City , some students worry that their money and time spent in a local training academy is going down the drain. Alarmed by perceived irregularities, three students from the National Center of Intensive Training University (CNCI) have solicited the assistance of Chihuahua state education authorities in guaranteeing that their studies are officially recognized. The trio, Barbara Milani, Rodrigo Flores and Jose Ramirez, informed the press about their concerns after realizing that the national office of the CNCI had severed ties with its Chihuahua City franchise. "There are students who finished their studies and they are battling to get their transcripts, maybe because the school does not have the official recognition of the Ministry of Public Education (SEP)," speculated Ramirez. "It is a very irregular situation. The director only goes to the school to collect tuition money," added classmate Milani. "We call CNCI Mexico, the corporate headquarters, and they tell us that CNCI in Chihuahua doesn't exist, but nobody explains what is happening." Although the Chihuahua City school currently enrolls almost 100 students, it allegedly has been operating since 2005 without accreditation by the federal SEP. The CNCI's Chihuahua City students pay about $110 dollars per month for instruction in computer graphics, accounting, website design, computer repair, and bilingual secretarial careers. Commenting on the Chihuahua City students' concerns, Eduardo Abarca Fernandez, the CNCI's franchise director, said the national company is now out of the loop. "It was a franchise we gave, but since it never got accredited and didn't comply with the standards that we demand, we took away the franchise right," Abarca said "It's very unfortunate that the students are involved in this problem," he added. "We already presented a legal complaint against the franchisees, for fraud and illegal use of the franchise name, but unfortunately, this is out of control of the students who we know aren't at fault." Two years ago, the CNCI granted a franchise to a group of unidentified businessmen in Chihuahua City . Until this week, a Chihuahua City school was included on the CNCI's roster of schools posted on the company's website. Mauricio Baca Beck and Nancy Ortiz were listed as the personnel in charge of a downtown Chihuahua City school that had a different address than the one mentioned in the current controversy. Multiple schools with the CNCI name operate in Ciudad Juarez , but only one, on Lopez Mateo Boulevard , is listed on the CNCI's web page. A school in downtown Ciudad Juarez on September 16 Avenue that carries the CNCI name is not listed. Another CNCI branch operates in Delicias, south of Chihuahua City . Founded in 1986 by Grupo Dataflux , a Mexican company that launched a computer education and equipment distribution business in Mexico and Colombia , the CNCI University is a national chain of schools that counts over 200 SEP-approved schools in more than 20 Mexican states. Company schools include a university, technical institutes and high schools. Technical training programs typically last about 18 months. Additionally, a chain of Internet cafes in Mexico , Cybercafe, is run by the company. Students completing the CNCI's assorted programs are guaranteed job placement, and potential bilingual secretaries are told they will learn not only how to answer phones but, importantly, how to cultivate “an excellent image and presentation” for their personal and professional development as well. Based in Monterrey , Nuevo Leon , the computer school chain is owned by members of the prominent Salinas Pliego family (no relation to the former president and his brother), a clan associated with the TV Azteca, Salinas Rocha, Banco Azteca and Elektra companies that operate in Mexico and the United States . Another associated enterprise is the Todito.com Internet portal that features chat rooms, gossip and music geared for youth appeal. In 2004, the CNCI began franchising outlets to interested entrepreneurs. A statement on the CNCI's website claims that franchisees can expect a 45 percent rate of return on their investment, but financial data reported by the Hoover 's business analysts show a much smaller profit margin for the company. Faced with lagging income in 2001, the CNCI reportedly extended the length of its professional training programs in order to “increase the volume of weekly payments.” The CNCI Chihuahua City controversy is the latest scandal to hit privately-owned computer schools in Chihuahua City and other regions of Mexico . Beginning in 2001, allegations of labor law violations, fraudulent educational programs, illegal drug abuse, sexual harassment, rape, and even kidnapping and murder began surfacing in a number of separate schools using different names. At least 17 girls and young women who had some kind of contact with computer schools in Chihuahua City , Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo disappeared between 1995 and 2005. Virtually all of them were later found raped and murdered, their bodies recovered in clusters with other victims of suspected serial killers. Several of the victims were reported last seen at ECCO ( a school officially not affiliated with the CNCI) computer school branches in Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez, and two employees of the school who were identified by victims' relatives as persons of extreme interest in at least two of the femicides mysteriously vanished. An undercover investigation of the ECCO computer school was carried out by the Federal Office of the Attorney General ( PGR ) two years ago, but the results of the probe were never publicly disclosed. The investigation came about two years after press reports first linked ECCO to numerous femicide victims. Based in Guadalajara , ECCO has denied any involvement in the femicides. Coral Arrieta Medina, a 17-year-old Ciudad Juarez maquiladora worker and CNCI student, was the last reported rape-murder victim to have a known connection to a computer school. Vanishing one day in March 2005, Arrieta's body was found three days later in the notorious Lote Bravo area on Ciudad Juarez 's outskirts, the same place where numerous femicide victims were dumped from 1993 to 1996. Suspicion quickly fell on Arrieta's brother-in-law, a security guard by profession, who was identified as either Fio Delfino Morales or Pio Delfino Mora Avalos. Claudia Cony Velarde, then head of the joint Chihuahua state-federal law enforcement unit in charge of investigating women's homicides, was quoted last year as saying the Arrieta investigation had “two very strong lines of investigation” and was proceeding on track. According to Velarde, both Chihuahua state and PGR investigators were working on the case. A report by the federal Chamber of Deputies femicide commission later stated that Arrieta's brother-in-law was detained in the United States and extradited to Mexico in 2005, but the outcome of the murder case was never thoroughly clarified. In the most recent Chihuahua City computer school controversy, state education officials say they will support the efforts of Milani and the other students to gain official recognition of their studies. Eva Trujillo, the spokeswoman for the state Ministry of Education and Culture, said authorities recently met with school manager Jose David Chavez Valdez, who requested 15 extra days to come up with the paperwork confirming the academic standing of the school. Guadalupe Chacon Monarrez, the Chihuahua minister of state education, said her department will work with the students to get their studies accredited, as well as support a possible complaint against the CNCI franchise with the federal Attorney for Consumer Protection. "In this regard, the Ministry of Education and Culture will assume its responsibility and try to protect the young people," Chacon pledged. Chihuahua 's top education official said that authorities are currently conducting a comprehensive review of the physical plants and curricula of private schools in the northern border state. Sub-standard private schools are even a greater problem in Ciudad Juarez than in Chihuahua City , Chacon added. Sources: El Diario de Chihuahua, May 7 and 8, 2006. Articles by Erika Talina Perea and Sandra Gutierrez. El Diario de Juarez, March 17, 2006 . Article by Jacinto Segura and Javier Saucedo. El Universal, March 16, 2005 . Article by Luis Cano Cano. cnci.com. camaradediputados.gob.mx Gold and Silver Up Historically one of Mexico 's important mining regions, the northern border state of Chihuahua continues turning out gold and silver. Statistics from the federal National Institute of Geography and Informatics report gold production of 682 kilograms in Chihuahua for January 2006 was up 56.88 percent above the output for the same month in 2005, while silver production of 30,810 kilograms represented a 21 percent increase during the same time period. The estimated, combined production of the two commodities in January was valued at more than $24 million dollars. Most of the mining is centered in the municipalities of Parral, Santa Barbara and Saucillo. Arturo Perez Saenz, the president of a national mining engineers and geologists' association, said the Chihuahua mining sector employs more than 10,000 workers. Perez said mining boosts other sectors of the economy including trade, services and ranching. According to Perez, a good portion of the silver and gold is sent to metal shops in Monterrey , Nuevo Leon , where the precious metals are then processed for sale in Mexico and abroad. Gold and silver mining in Chihuahua is carried out by several Mexican and foreign companies, chief among them Grupo Mexico, Grupo Penoles, Minerales Metalicos del Norte, La Perla Minas de Fierro, Minera Frisco, Bismark and Palmilla. Perez said a 1992 investment law reform during the administration of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari resulted in the increased participation of foreign-owned firms in the Chihuahua mining industry. Nationally, Chihuahua is rated the number three state in the production of gold and silver. Source: El Diario de Juarez, April 8, 2006. Article by Ramon Salcido. Mega-projects: The Kick-Off of the "Border Raiders?" Divided by a border, elected officials from the Paso del Norte region are joining together for a common project: bringing professional football to the border. At a Ciudad Juarez meeting this month, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes announced the establishment of a binational commission to explore the feasibility of landing a United States National Football League team in the Paso del Norte border region within the next 5 to 6 years. Joining Richardson and Reyes in the cross-border initiative are El Paso Mayor John Cook, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia Lardizabal, Las Cruces Mayor William Mattiace and Mayor Ruben Segura of Sunland Park , New Mexico . Boosting the project in Santa Fe , Gov. Richardson promoted a new NFL team as an economic development tool. Speaking in Santa Fe , the Democratic governor contended a professional football franchise "could create good jobs and new opportunities for business in our state." Although a clear plan is far from being presented, comments by elected officials indicate that each of the cities interested in the project will try to draw some benefit from it. According to Gov. Richardson and Mayor Mattiace, Albuquerque could the headquarters of an eventual franchisee while home games might be played in El Paso or Ciudad Juarez and spring training conducted at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces . Also, Gov. Richardson and the other officials behind the border football project are attempting to tweak the interest of the private sector in investing money on a dream team. Businessmen from Ciudad Juarez attended the closed meeting where the proposal was presented. Although few of the attendees were publicly identified, one name mentioned was Ibarra, a family prominent in the construction industry and the current owners of the Indios de Ciudad Juarez professional soccer team. A prime mover of the sports mega-project, Gov. Richardson has been working on interesting a football team in New Mexico and the border region for some time. He's met with representatives of the Dallas Cowboys and other teams, conferred with NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and hired California sports consultant Dan Barrett to study the project. Upwards of $500,000 dollars in tax dollars from New Mexico have been earmarked for the pilot study. The big issues surrounding the project are, of course, costs and benefits for local governments and economies. In 2001, Denver 's Invesco field where the Broncos play opened for games with a price tag of $400 million dollars. In recent years, governments in many US cities have granted public subsidies for the construction of sports complexes used by privately-owned teams. A 2000 review of previous experiences in some US cities by Oklahoma economist Dr. Daniel Sutter found a very modest economic impact from publicly-subsidized stadium sports. Dr. Sutter noted that claims of job creation were overblown in some cases, while spending on other forms of entertainment like movies and amusement parks decreased and shifted to professional sports. Restaurants close to stadiums cashed in but eateries near theaters lost out, according to Dr. Sutter. The "Border Raiders" project is already drawing criticism, especially from members of New Mexico 's Republican Party. New Mexico state Senator Joe Carraro, for instance, attacked the state-funded pilot study as "frivolous." Rejecting the notion that a pro team would relocate to New Mexico , Senator Carraro contended that the state expenditure on the study was "money (taken from) kids going to school." A possible National Football League franchise is the latest in a series of publicly-supported mega-projects that are emerging as future economic locomotives of the Paso del Norte border region. El Paso is slated for a major expansion of Fort Bliss , while the Southwest Regional Spaceport, bolstered by subsidies from the New Mexico State Legislature, is sited for the desert north of Las Cruces . Officials from both Mexico and the US are pushing the twin city of San Jeronimo-Santa Teresa planned for the New Mexico-Chihuahua border as the locus for much of the manufacturing industry in the future. While the Fort Bliss and Spaceport projects are moving ahead with little controversy, organized opposition to the San Jeronimo-Santa Teresa is picking up steam in Ciudad Juarez because of fears that tax dollars needed for pressing social needs will be instead spent on subsidizing the new border city. Sources: El Diario de Ciudad Juarez , March 19, 2006. Article by Lorena Figueroa. Norte, March 17, 2006. Article by Adrian Ventura Lares. El Paso Times, March 17, 2006. Article by Louie Gilot. Albuquerque Tribune, March 16, 2006. Article by Kate Nash. The OAS Revisits the Ciudad Juarez Murders As New Scandals Erupt Almost two years to the day of issuing its report on the Ciudad Juarez women's murders, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States heard that much more action needs to be taken by authorities. On March 3, a delegation of women's and human rights activists urged the Washington, D.C.-based IACHR to seriously follow up on recommendations the human rights institution made in 2003 to the administration of President Vicente Fox. Making the appeal were representatives of several Latin American non-governmental organizations who presented a report to the IACHR about femicide in Latin America . Marimar Monroy, a member of the non-governmental, Mexico City-based Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights and one of the presenters of the report, said in an interview with Frontera NorteSur that the delegation traveled to the US to call for an end to a continued, "grave violation of human rights." Based on a 2002 visit to Ciudad Juarez, the IACHR issued an extensive set of recommendations to the Fox Administration mainly rooted in the principles contained in the American Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention of Belem do Para . "Violence against women is, first and foremost, a human rights problem," noted the IACHR in its report to the federal Mexican government. Coinciding with investigations by Amnesty International and the United Nations, the IACHR discovered a pattern of sexually-related murders, numerous irregularities in the handling of murder cases by the Office of the Chihuahua State Attorney General (PGJE), serious doubts about the guilt of some suspects, and a failure to systematically address gender and domestic violence. Also, the Washington-based commission scored the Mexican government for not implementing a series of 1998 recommendations from the government's own National Human Rights Commission. Among other measures, the IACHR recommended examining the linkages between cases, reactivating cold cases and protecting witnesses, family members, journalists and human rights defenders from threats. The IACHR issued protective orders for Esther Chavez, the director of the Casa Amiga rape crisis center, and Miriam Garcia and Blanca Lopez, the wives of two bus drivers accused of the 2001 cotton field murders. Lopez's husband, Gustavo Gonzalez, died under mysterious circumstances in prison while awaiting trial, and his lawyer, Mario Escobedo Jr. was shot to death by Chihuahua state judicial police during the administration of former state Attorney General Jesus Jose Solis Silva. Sergio Dante Almaraz, the lawyer for Gonzalez's ultimately acquitted co-defendant, Victor Garcia Uribe, was murdered in Ciudad Juarez last January. The lawyer was also granted protective order by the IACHR, to no avail. Lawyers demanding justice in the Almaraz murder have recently reported receiving threats. The Government's Response to the OAS: In response to the concerns of IACHR and other international organizations, the Fox Administration stepped up technical cooperation with Chihuahua state law enforcement, established a special prosecutor for women's homicides in Ciudad Juarez, appointed Guadalupe Morfin to coordinate inter-institutional efforts to combat violence against women and provided some social, psychological and economic support to victims' relatives. Together with the PGJE, the Office of the Federal Attorney General (PGR) launched searches for missing women, managing to locate 11 women of the alive and identifying skeletons as belonging to two long-disappeared women, Alma Delia Lopez Guevara and Blanca Cecilia Rivas Lopez. Currently, the federal and Chihuahua state governments collaborate in a joint program to find missing women called "Operation Alba." Nonetheless, critics like Monroy say the federal government has fallen far short in meeting the IACHR's recommendations of curbing violence against women, detaining genuine murderers and holding accountable state officials responsible for botching previous investigations. None of the more than 100 mid and low-level Chihuahua state law enforcement officials named by former Special Prosecutor Maria Lopez Urbina for allegedly committing serious breaches of duty has received legal punishment. High-ranking state officials with ultimate authority over the investigations were never named or charged. "We see that impunity continues," Monroy concludes. In fact, more irregularities in previous investigations came to light in recent days when Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez admitted that the bones of some murder victims had been improperly taken from state storage and moved to the medical school of Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez. The unauthorized removal was uncovered by a team of Argentinian forensic specialists contracted by the Chihuahua state government to help identify murder victims. As a result of the discovery, Gonzalez suspended Enrique Silva, the longtime chief of technical services for the PGJE in Ciudad Juarez . Women's activist Paula Flores, the mother of 1998 murder victim Sagrario Gonzalez, accused Silva of committing previous irregularities by falsifying a declaration attributed to Flores that was included in her daughter's murder file. Flores said she didn't think the irregularities were an accident. "(Silva) knows a lot and I don't think that it's because they don't know or that it is negligence," she said. Silva, who is reportedly related to former state Attorney General Solis, made no immediate comment about the bone scandal. Since the IACHR's 2002 visit, at least 117 women have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez-18 more than in the comparable 37-month period prior to the visit. Among the latest victims were 15-year-old Guadalupe Hernandez, shot to death on March 2 of this year, and 74-year-old Margarita Cardoza Carrasco and her 27-year-old granddaughter Luisa Lorena Hernandez. Stabbed to death, Cardoza and her granddaughter were found in late February in Cardoza's home some 72 hours after reportedly being killed. It was reported that the younger woman, who was handicapped, had been raped. Unconfirmed reports indicated Cardoza might have denounced drug traffickers in her neighborhood before being murdered. A suspect in the Hernandez shooting was arrested, while authorities say they were investigating two men in the Cardoza-Hernandez double slaying. More than 500 women have been murdered for different reasons in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City since 1993, according to press reports and the 2005 book Cosecha de Mujeres (Harvest of Women) by Diana Washington Valdez. Dozens more remain missing. The Feds Astonishing Declarations : In response to pressure from civil society and international human rights groups, the PGR attracted 24 murders for investigation. The files put under federal authority included the cases of multiple victims found in the cotton field in 2001 and on the Cristo Negro mountain in 2002-2003. Years later, not a single case taken over by the feds has been resolved. Indeed, in its "final report" on the Ciudad Juarez murders issued early this year, the PGR could not find linkages between many killings as the IACHR previously suggested. Despite mounting evidence, the PGR report glosses over serial killers, law enforcement agents and elements of organized crime as the perpetrators of a lot of the carnage. The authors of the PGR's report even suggest the rape murders of some women were secondary, almost accidental, outcomes of the "erotic sexual impulses" experienced by victimizers. "These types of declarations are very grave," Monroy contends. "A thorough investigation needs to be done." The PGR's conclusions in its "final report" are contradicted by assessments from numerous, knowledgeable experts, including the PGR's own Alicia Elena Perez Duarte, the newly appointed federal special prosecutor for women's murders, and Hardwick Crawford, the former head of the El Paso FBI office, who stated to California's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspaper this week that drug traffickers committed many of the women's killings in order to "show who was in charge." During Crawford's stint in El Paso , the FBI received intelligence about the women's murders. Crawford charged that corruption in the Mexican government prevented progress in stopping the women's murders and arresting the killers. On March 7, the PGR's "final report" came under fire in the federal Chamber of Deputies. In astonishing testimony, Mexican Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca backtracked and denied the report was the PGR's "final" word. On the defensive, he promised that Alicia Perez would do a better job than her predecessors. However, it's not known if the next federal administration, which takes office in December, will continue with Perez's office. Blasting impunity, Cabeza de Vaca vowed to take the femicide issue to, of all places, the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the next step beyond the IACHR in the OAS system. Such a move would constitute a highly unusual act of a government seeking legal orders against it self. In a press statement, the PGR justified a possible Inter-American Court intervention on the grounds that it would allow the federal government to legally sidestep Mexican law that relegates "common" murders to state legal systems like Chihuahua 's- even though provisions already exist in Mexican and international law which allow the federal government to intervene. Ariela Peralta, a lawyer with the non-profit, Washington-based Center for Justice and International Law, an organization that assists citizens petitioning the OAS for human rights redresses, told Frontera NorteSur she knew of no precedent of a state official seeking an order against his own government. "We haven't seen a similar case," Peralta said. In another surprising development, the PGR said it was considering assigning Special Prosecutor Perez to probe the Cancun pedophile ring exposed by author Lydia Cacho and transformed into an international scandal after Cacho's arrest on defamation charges last December. In recent days, Perez raised the possibility of a connection between the Cancun ring and the Ciudad Juarez slayings. Meanwhile, Back in the Commission..... Whether or not the PGR goes to the Inter-American Court , the issue of the Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City femicides is certain to percolate in the OAS for the foreseeable future. For example, two individual complaints against the Mexican government are pending before the IACHR. According to the Mexican Commission's Monroy, they concern the cases of Silvia Arce, a cosmetic and jewelry vendor and mother who disappeared in Ciudad Juarez in 1998, and Paloma Angelica Escobar, a 16-year-old ECCO computer school student who was abducted, raped and murdered in Chihuahua City in 2002. In both cases, suspects or persons of interests were identified through the investigations of family members, not police, but no arrests were ever made. Instead, Eva Arce, the mother of Silvia, as well as relatives of Paloma Escobar, have been subjected to physical aggression, harassment and threats. Additional sources: La Jornada, March 2 and 8, 2006. Articles by Gustavo Castillo Garcia. Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, March 7, 2006. Article by Sara A. Carter and Edward Barrera. El Universal, March 7, 2006. Article by Jorge Herrera. Norte, March 6, 2006. Articles by Angel Zubia Garcia and Sonia Aguilar. El Diario de Juarez, March 2 and 6, 2006. Articles by Armando Rodriguez and Javier Saucedo. frontenet.com, March 3, 2006. Article by Felix Gonzalez. Channel 44 and Channel 54 ( Ciudad Juarez ), February 24, 2006. Journalist Convicted for Defaming Former Law Enforcement Official A Chihuahua state judge has slapped well-known journalist Isbael Arvide with a one-year, suspended prison sentence for defaming former Chihuahua Attorney General Jesus "Chito" Solis Silva. Decreeing sentence on February 28, Judge Octavio Rodriguez also ordered Arvide to pay a $19,000 dollar fine and refrain from speaking or writing about Solis again. Vowing to block the sentence, Arvide said that "the law has not been respected and nothing indicates it will be." A flamboyant, Mexico City-based journalist known to have high-powered connections, Arvide's troubles began when she penned a 2001 article that linked Solis, then the chief of Chihuahua state public security, to a new drug cartel that emerged in the wake of bloody power struggles after the reported 1997 death of Ciudad Juarez drug lord Amado "The Lord of the Skies" Carrillo Fuentes. Although Solis already had a record of human rights complaints, Governor Patricio Martinez appointed the controversial law enforcement official as the state's attorney general in 2002. While serving as state attorney general, Solis initiated criminal defamation charges against Arvide. The journalist was arrested on two occasions for the offense in 2003, the first time after traveling to Chihuahua City in the company of current presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo, whom Arvide later accused of setting her up for the arrest. Arvide was traveling in dangerous territory. After the publication of her 1996 book about the disappearance of friend Heidi Slaquet in Ciudad Juarez , Arvide traveled to the border city with a police escort. In March 2003, a heavily-armed commando from the Chihuahua State Judicial Police overwhelmed Arvide's escorts from the Federal Preventive Police and detained the journalist in the Chihuahua City airport, whisking her off to jail where she was initially held incommunicado, strip searched and threatened. Released on bail, Arvide was required to report to the court every two weeks. Arvide's detention was very similar to the more recent experience of journalist Lydia Cacho, who was arrested in Cancun last December on defamation charges stemming from her book about an international ring of rich pedophiles with powerful political connections. Transformed into a national and international scandal, the Cacho arrest has become a rallying case for press freedom and an end to judicial and political corruption in Mexico . According to Cacho, she too was initially held incommunicado and even threatened with rape. In Chihauhua state, Solis' 2002-2004 tenure as state attorney general was marred by unabated narco-executions, forced disappearances, femicides and scandals. State judicial police and prosecutors under Solis' authority were variously linked to narco-executions, torture and other human rights violations. Bodies of femicide victims recovered by state law enforcement officials in both Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City were hidden from both family members and the press. In two different 2003 cases, Chihuahua state police arrested US citizen Cynthia Kiecker, Ulises Perzabal and David Meza in Chihuahua City as the alleged murderers of two young women who fit the profile of previous serial killing victims. All three suspects charged they were tortured into making false confessions. The detentions were condemned by Amnesty International, numerous other human rights groups and even Guadalupe Morfin, President Fox's special commissioner for violence against women in Ciudad Juarez . Found innocent by a Chihuahua judge in December 2004, Kiecker and Perzabal were released from prison, but Meza remains in jail. Solis was forced to resign in March 2004, after members of his Chihuahua State Judicial Police force were exposed as executioners of the Juarez drug cartel, and after an official with Solis' department in charge of initiating murder investigations in Ciudad Juarez was arrested for running a prostitution ring of minors that catered to prominent businessmen. In response to her prison term, Arvide, who is still out of jail, noted that her conviction came long after sentencing deadlines under Chihuahua state law expired. She also charged that the court had engaged in another irregularity by attempting to have her agree to a "negotiation" with Solis. In a statement posted on her web site, Arvide wrote that her predicament wasn't an isolated instance. Citing the arrest of Lydia Cacho, Arvide contended that "it's impossible to live in a legal system where the freedom of expression is cut off by the interests and personalities of power." There was no immediate comment from Solis about Arvide's conviction. Ann Cooper, the executive director of the New York City-based Committe to Protect Journalists, strongly condemned the sentence against Arvide. "Criminally prosecuting a journalist for doing her job sends a chilling message to all Mexican journalists, and it is out of step with the region's growing legal consensus that allegations of defamation are not a criminal issue," Cooper said. The press advocate added that Arvide's sentence contradicts Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights that upholds freedom of expression which does not incite violence. Even though Mexico has ratified the American Convention, a number of states still have laws that classify defamation as a criminal offense subject to imprisonment. In Chihuahua , Deputy Jaime Garcia Chavez announced he will introduce legislation in the state congress this month to decriminalize defamation. Additional sources: lapolaka.com, March 3, 2006. arvide.com Refitting Schools to Prevent Sexual Abuse Confronted with dozens of allegations about sexual abuse last year, some Ciudad Juarez schools now are redesigning their physical plant. At the New Generation pre-school in the Valle Dorado colonia, where accusations of the attempted rape of 13 children prompted outrage, school authorities are constructing bathrooms inside classrooms in order to keep students within safe monitoring distance. According to Araceli Guzman Rascon, the technical secretary of the state General Education Department in Ciudad Juarez , parent groups have agreed to a series of other measures aimed at preventing sexual abuse. Chief among the changes are greater vigilance of school hallways, entrances and exists before, during and after the school day; not allowing older students to enter a restroom during recess time for younger students without first notifying an adult, and reorganizing security committees made up of parents, teachers and students. In pre-schools where teaching and administrative staff are hired by parent groups, Guzman said personal data and identification documents of employees are currently being collected by legal authorities to find out whether or not an employee has a criminal record. Additionally, school officials are moving forward with an educational program for students. Pre-school students, for example, are receiving training in sexual abuse awareness. At the elementary and middle school levels, pupils are learning about defending themselves from sexual aggressions, preventing sexual abuse and resisting gangs. Elementary and middle school students are also subject to "Operation Backpack," a police operation that periodically conducts searches of students' backpacks. Source: El Diario de Ciudad Juarez , February 24, 2006. Articles by Guadalupe Felix. Smelter Air Permit Decision Postponed The object of a long-running battle, a closed El Paso copper smelter will continue to generate polemics and protests this year. By a 2-1 vote, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) decided February 8 to postpone an expected decision this week whether or not to renew the air quality permit for a plant owned by the American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco). Before it closed in 1999, the plant smelted lead, copper and other heavy metals for more than 100 years. The three-member TCEQ panel ordered that further studies, plant inspections and hearings about the air pollution impact of a reopened smelter be submitted to the state before a final decision on the air permit renewal application is made. Additionally, the company will have to conduct new air emissions modeling to show the impact of its operations on the air quality of nearby Ciudad Juarez and southern New Mexico . The decision was reached at a meeting in the Texas state capital of Austin attended by more than 100 permit renewal opponents who traveled from the tri-state Paso del Norte border region. Participants in the "Caravan of Justice" included border state legislators from both Mexico and the United States , environmentalists and residents of neighborhoods located near the smelter. "Justice was delayed today," said the Sierra Club in a statement. "Asarco will continue to threaten the health, environment and rights of citizens in El Paso , Ciudad Juarez and New Mexico until it's closed forever," contended Sierra Club organizer Mariana Chew. Eric Groten, the legal representative for Asarco, characterized the TCEQ's decision as "absolutely" right, but expressed frustration at the lengthy process involved in the air permit decision. Groten said Asarco is confident the El Paso smelter will be operating within a year if the TCEQ approves a renewed air permit. Some Ciudad Juarez media interpreted the TCEQ's postponement of a decision this week as a virtual victory for Asarco. "Despite the multiple protests of various environmental groups, authorities and residents of this city, as well as from the US , Asarco will open its doors in a period of 7 months," declared the frontenet.com website. Striking a similar tone, the lapolaka.com news site said an Asarco "reopening to create jobs in El Paso " was a "done deal." Opponents, however, assessed the postponed decision as giving them more time to organize against Asarco, while allowing the TCEQ to have better information about the smelter's impact on neighboring Ciudad Juarez and Sunland Park/Anapra, New Mexico . At an El Paso hearing last year, testimony revealed that previous air emissions modeling did not consider Ciudad Juarez or New Mexico , even though the wind from the Asarco plant blows in the direction of the two locales the majority of the time. Although Texas state law doesn't currently require the TCEQ to consider the air quality of its neighbors when making air permitting decisions, some environmentalists argue the state has such an obligation under the border smelter annex to the La Paz agreement between Mexico and the US . Texas state Senator Eliot Shapleigh plans to introduce legislation to require the TCEQ to take into account the proximity of Ciudad Juarez and southern New Mexico to El Paso in future air permitting decisions. Joining Sen. Shapleigh in opposition to a reopened Asarco plant are Chihuahua federal Senator Jeffrey Jones and Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza, as well as the mayors of El Paso , Ciudad Juarez and Sunland Park . After the TCEQ's decision, Chihuahua legislator Salvador Gomez Rodriguez appealed to the political leaders to step up their opposition to the smelter. Gomez criticized TCEQ's postponement as foot-dragging in the face of past studies which linked the Asarco plant to extensive lead and heavy metals soil contamination, a pollution problem in the Paso del Norte region the company denies it is responsible for causing. The latest study stoking the fires of controversy was released by the Sierra Club one week prior to the TCEQ's Austin vote. In a study contracted by the environmental group, chemist Michael E. Ketterer linked soil contamination in El Paso , Ciudad Juarez and Anapra to Asarco. Ketterer's study compared lead isotopes found in local soil contamination to lead isotopes from the Santa Eulalia mine in Chihuahua where Asarco once obtained much of the ore for its El Paso smelter. Sources: El Paso Times, February 9, 2006 . Norte, February 9, 2006 . Articles by Edith Caballero and Adrian Ventura Lares. Article by Brandi Grissorn. frontenet.com, February 8, 2006 . lapolaka.com, February 8, 2006 . Sierra Club press releases, January 31 and February 8, 2006 . Missing Teenagers' Remains Identified Sorrow visited the homes of two more Chihuahua City families this past weekend. The families of 14-year-old Claudia Judith Urias Berthaud and 17-year-old Miriam Cristina Gallegos Venegas were notified by the Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office (PGJE) that the remains of their long-missing daughters had been identified through DNA tests. In the case of Gallegos, a worker for the ACS maquiladora plant who disappeared on May 4, 2000, Argentinian forensic specialists working with the PGJE finally identified a skull orginally recovered near a construction site in 2003 as belonging to the teenager. Urias' remains were discovered last December 17 in an arroyo by an employee of the Z Gas Company, a gas distribution firm associated with the Zaragoza family of Ciudad Juarez . The teenager's remains were located in the same area where the skeleton of another missing teenager, Rosalba Pizarro Ortega, was discovered in 2004. After sitting in storage for more than one year, Pizarro's remains were also eventually identified by the Argentinian team. Urias and Pizarro's remains were found in the same general area on the southern edge of Chihuahua City where the purported body of 16-year-old murder victim Viviana Rayas was discovered in 2003. The discovery in the same perimeter of the remains of teenage girls who disappeared at widely different times suggests the same individual or individuals could be responsible for multiple crimes. However, no immediate comment was forthcoming from Chihuahua state law enforcement officials. News of the identification of Urias¨and Gallegos' remains broke at the beginning of Mexico 's three-day Constitution Day holiday, when government offices are closed and much of the press on reduced work status. Adriana Carmona, a lawyer for the victims relatives' group Justice for Our Daughters, told Frontera NorteSur the exact causes of the deaths of Urias, Pizarro and Gallegos could not be determined because of the time lag between the victims' disappearances and the identification of their sparse remains. Carmona contended other problems like not following up on leads plagued the investigation of the missing girls' cases by state law enforcement authorities. "This is a call for the authorities to change the forensic services so this kind of thing doesn't happen again," Carmona said. "We hope that because of the Argentinian forensic team, the state attorney general takes measures to correct the irregularities." A middle school student, Urias disappeared on March 10, 2003, while on her way to visit her grandmother. According to reports from Justice for Our Daughers, Urias' mother, Virginia Berthaud, was employed as a recruiter for the privately-owned ECCO computer school in Chihuahua City . Rosalba Pizarro, who went missing in 2001, reportedly disappeared after going to the ECCO branch in Chihuahua City . Since 1995, at least 16 young women or girls who had some sort of contact with ECCO and other private computer schools in Ciudad Juarez , Chihuahua City and Nuevo Laredo have been murdered or disappeared. Many had been raped. A 2003 report submitted to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights by the non-governmental Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights said Virginia Berthaud was contacted by telephone 15 days after her daughter's disappearance by a man who offered to exchange Berthaud's daughter for another young woman. After news of her daughter's disappearance hit the press, Berthaud reported that a strange truck was tailing her. Other, out-of-place trucks were seen parked outside the missing teenager's school. According to the Mexican Commission's report, Urias' disappearance wasn't even investigated by the PGJE until 9 days after the girl vanished. The cases of Urias, Gallegos and Pizarro were included in a long campaign organized by Justice for Our Daughters. Chihuahua City activists demanded that Maria Lopez Urbina, the former federal special prosecutor for women's homicides in Ciudad Juarez , investigate the cases of murdered and missing women in Chihuahua City as well as in Ciudad Juarez . As it turned out, Lopez Urbina never conducted a field homicide investigation in Ciudad Juarez . Before being removed from her post and assigned to head the Federal Office of the Attorney General (PGR) in Campeche state last year, Lopez Urbina focused on naming 130 current and former members of the PGJE who she alleged had been negligent in their investigations. None of Lopez Urbina's reports specifically covered officials involved in Chihuahua City cases. Late last year, the PGR announced the dissolution of the Ciudad Juarez federal prosecutor's office and its replacement with a prosecutorial unit headed up by Alicia Perez Duarte and authorized to investigate cases throughout Mexico . Carmona said she and other women's advocates then met with Perez to insist that authorities "really investigate the cases." Until now, Carmona and her group have not seen a work plan or a commitment to investigate the Chihuahua City cases by the new special prosecutor. "This worries us," Carmona said. With less than 10 months to go before the Fox Administration leaves office, it is unclear whether Perez will make any headway, or even have a job by the end of the year. Indeed, signs exist the Fox Adminsitration is fast moving to close the unsolved cases of murdered women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City . Carmona said some federal law enforcement officials are offering mothers of murdered and missing young women money in exchange for not pursuing any further investigations yet. She added that Justice for Our Daughters is likewise concerned about the PGR's criteria for awarding reparations to victims' families. Carmona said different amounts of money are being offered depending on whether the victim was raped or not. Additional sources: El Diario de Chihuahua, February 4, 2006. Article by Gabriel Acevedo. La Jornada, February 4, 2006. Article by Miroslava Breach. Activists Demand Steps against Gender Violence Hundreds of protestors once again took to the Santa Fe Bridge linking El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to demand justice for murdered women in Chihuahua state. Sponsored by the National Organization for Women, Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez, victims' family members and other activists, this weekend's action called on Mexican President Vicente Fox and the Mexican Congress to end impunity for those responsible for many of the still-unsolved slayings. Chanting the familiar slogan, "No Justice, No Peace," the protestors urged citizens to send postcards to the Mexican government demanding real action in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City. At least 33 women have been reported as victims of known or suspected homicides in Ciudad Juarez so far this year, nudging the number of women murdered in the border city to nearly 500 since 2004. Dozens more remain disappeared. The El Paso-Ciudad Juarez demonstration was one piece of a series of mounting actions aimed at gender and domestic violence in the Spanish-speaking world which have taken place since the middle of November. Events were particularly widespread on November 25, the International Day of Non-Violence toward Women and Children, when governmental and non-governmental organizations in Mexico, Central America and elsewhere held workshops and fairs, staged demonstrations and organized peñas to commemorate the struggle against gender violence. On November 25, the major Mexican electronic and print media devoted considerable attention and space to themes of gender and domestic violence. Unfortunately, there was plenty of bad news to report. A report from Mexico's National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI) revealed that two border states, Chihuahua and Baja California were in second and third place on a statewide basis in 2003, respectively, for violent deaths suffered by women in Mexico. Topping the list nationally was Zacatecas state. According to the INEGI, 32 women out of every population group of 100,000 in Chihuahua suffered violent deaths, while 27 women out of every 100,000 in Baja California perished violently. Nationally, Chihuahua accounted for 5 percent of all violent female deaths. The INEGI has defined violent deaths to include suicides. The federal research agency's statistics were drawn from a national survey it organized in conjunction with the National Women's Institute of Mexico and the United Nations. The 2003 study reported that 4 out of 10 women participants 15 years of age or older said they had been subjected to violence by someone close to them at some point during their lives. The INEGI and its partner institutions used a broad index to investigate violence, defining violence against women to include emotional, economic and sexual and physical violence. The survey found that 47 out of 100 Mexican women are confronted with some kind of violence from a husband or partner. Contending that many women are trapped in such desperate domestic circumstances that suicide is seen by some as the only possible way out of their prison, some researchers say it is legitimate to consider suicide as a form of violence against women. For instance, Malu Perea, a professor at the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, said in a recent public forum that one of her students has found links between female suicides and domestic abuse/violence. According to Professor Perea, women account for about 30 percent of suicide attempts treated at Aguascalientes' Hidalgo Hospital. Additional Sources: El Paso Times, December 4, 2005. Article by Zahira Torres. El Diario de Juarez, December 4, 2005. Article by Gustavo Cabullo. El Universal, December 4, 2005. Article by Luis Carlos Cano C. cimacnoticias.com Cross-Border Prison Industries, Inc. The chain gang of yore is getting a globalized make-over. Enjoying what is literally a captive labor force, Chihuahua state authorities are laying the groundwork for export-oriented factories, or maquiladoras, in the state's prisons. For correctional officials involved in the industrial project, the buzzword is rehabilitation. "Idleness is the mother of all vices," said Juan Federico Fernandez, the warden of the Ciudad Juarez prison. "Here it could encourage prisoners who don't work to become easy prey to drug trafficking." Warden Fernandez recently attended a Chihuahua City meeting with other state authorities and the Tijuana-based company Ceinre in order to discuss the possibility of having maquiladoras operate in the state's penitentiaries. Fernandez said a plan is under review to initially employ 500 prisoners in Ciudad Juarez , Chihuahua City and Parral, for the purpose of making room furnishings for the international hotel industry. In order to obtain extra space for the Ciudad Juarez site, the prison administrator added that using land now controlled by the Mexican Defense Ministry is under consideration. Private and public backers of the project hope tourists, in the comfort of their favorite resort, soon will be relishing the refreshing rugs and cool curtains made by Chihuahua 's convicts. A North Carolina-born businessman, Joe Robertson Ervin Jones, is the private sector's frontman for the Chihuahua maquiladora prison project. A one-time textile worker, Robertson began manufacturing products for a Hilton hotel in Las Vegas , Nevada , in 1975. He later ran plants in Orlando and Dallas before closing up US shop in 1997, laying off 600 workers and moving to Mexico . Now a nationalized Mexican citizen, Robertson is associated with two Mexican companies, Ceinre and JoeVilla. Robertson's companies operate, or plan to operate, maquiladoras in Quintana Roo , Yucatan , Baja California and Chihuahua . A factory line employing about 50 workers who assemble blankets and other hotel furnishings was rolled out last September at a Quintana Roo state prison. Robertson's enterprise has been awarded the exclusive supplier contract for Marriott's Latin American hotels. In an interview with the Mexican press at the recent maquiladora industry convention held in Acapulco , Guerrero, Robertson laid out his plans to have factories operating in virtually every Mexican prison, employing tens of thousands of workers. "We want to motivate the prisoner to help his family and reintegrate (into society) with honor and integrity so he can recover his self-esteem, which is one of the biggest problems inmates have," Robertson said. "We want prisoners who are close to release not to return." Robertson is pursuing a twin-plant strategy for Mexican prisons. The goal is to build a twin plant right outside the gates of the jail, allowing prisoners' wives to be employed in addition to the inmates themselves once they are released. Prisoners will be paid the minimum wage of about $4 dollars a day. One-third of the wage will go to the prisoner, one-third to his family and one-third to the prison administration. It's not known if the twin plants will pay the traditional punctuality and attendance bonuses of the maquiladora industry, or if unions will be permitted to represent the inmate-workers. Robertson contended that prison factories could serve to reduce crime and wayward social behavior by providing an income to prisoners who sell drugs on the inside in order to survive, as well as to their wives who sell their bodies on the outside. "This program is going to eliminate those type of problems and bring the family together when the prisoner completes his sentence," Robertson said. Robertson and Company have an ambitious agenda. In addition to the Chihuahua plants, the prison industry investors have plans for jailhouse factories in other nations of Latin America, Canada , Spain , and Indonesia . Sources: El Diario de Juarez, November 9, 2005. Article by Javier Saucedo. Norte, October 31, 2005. Article by Francisco Cabrera. www.unidaddelvocero.com, September 15, 2005. Land/Logging Conflict Hits Chihuahua City Indigenous protestors seized three federal government offices in Chihuahua City this week. Led by traditional Governor Cayetano Bustillos Ramos and other leaders, a group of about 150 Tarahumaras, or Raramuris, occupied the Chihuahua offices of federal agrarian reform and indigenous agencies after complaining that demands to uphold their land rights were falling on deaf ears. "There is no confidence in the federal delegates," said Raramuri leader Victor Ayala Ramos. Frustrated by the alleged snail's pace in hearing their land title litigation, the Raramuri protestors first arrived in Chihuahua City almost two weeks ago and set up a camp on Plaza Hidalgo outside the state government offices. Centering around the ejido of Pino Gordo, a collectively-owned tract of land located in the Sierra Tarahumara of southern Chihuahua state, the conflict pits mestizo and chabochi (white) ejido members against indigenous landowners. The Raramuris contend that 50 people allied with regional strongman Raul Aguirre are illegally usurping indigenous-owned lands, displacing the genuine ejido members and engaging in destructive logging for companies based in Parral, Chihuahua, and Durango state. Raramuris from the communities of Pino Gordo and Coloradas de los Chavez charge that the logging threatens about 40,000 acres of virgin pine and oak forest in the municipality of Guadalupe de Calvo , an area also known as a hotspot for illegal narcotics cultivation. Due to the conflict, the federal Attorney General for Environmental Protection has suspended logging on the disputed lands. Indigenous ejido members demand that the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources cancel logging permits held by the non-indigenous residents of Pino Gordo. In response to the indigenous protests, Chihuahua state authorities have started intervening in the conflict. Last week, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza met with the protesting Rararmuris and promised to set up a negotiating commission. Meeting with Chihuahua state legislators this week, the Raramuris won an agreement from the state congress to send a letter exhorting federal agrarian officials to speed up a resolution to the Pino Gordo problem. Sources: La Jornada, November 2 and 8, 2005. Articles by Miroslava Breach Velducea. lapolaka.com, November 8, 2005. Smelter Opponents Chalk Up a Win Environmentalists and political leaders are praising the long-awaited findings of two Texas state administrative law judges about the American Smelting and Refining Company's (Asarco) application to renew a state air quality permit for its aging El Paso copper smelter. In a lengthy document released last Thursday, October 27, judges William Newchurch and Veronica Najera recommended to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that current law does not warrant a permit renewal. The judges cited Asarco's last 5-year compliance record, as well as the company's failure to show that its smelter would not cause or contribute to air pollution in the future. A key issue was Asarco's air emissions monitoring model. The recommendation, based on submitted testimony and revelations heard during a two-week public trial held last July in El Paso , will be considered by a three-member TCEQ panel that will have final say so over the air quality permit renewal. Asarco suspended its El Paso operations in 1999. Concerns over air pollution from renewed smelting operations have stoked broad opposition to Asarco in southern New Mexico , El Paso and Ciudad Juarez , which is located directly across the Rio Grande from the old smelter. "Let's hope the TCEQ follows in some way the (legal) recommendation," said Alcides Flores Martinez, a representative of Ciudad Juarez 's Citizens Organized for Integral Community Development (CODIC), one of the groups opposing Asarco's reopening. The Sierra Club, El Paso Mayor John Cook and Texas state Senator Eliot Shapleigh all praised the recommendation of judges Newchurch and Najera. Later, Mayor Cook and Senator Shapleigh joined with representatives of Ciudad Juarez 's municipal government to appeal for a united, cross-border front against a reopened smelter. Asarco representative Lairy Johnson said his company will review the recommendation. In comments raising the specter of legal action, Asarco attorney Eric Groten questioned the premise for denying the renewal of an existing permit. “No one ever before has been asked to do this...to get a permit renewal using new air modeling methods," Groten said. Asarco and the other parties involved in the contested permit will have until November 28 to file exceptions and legal briefs to the recommendation. It's not yet known when the TCEQ will render its final decision on the permit. Whether the permit is granted or not, the battle of Asarco is unlikely to wind down anytime soon. Company opponents on both sides of the border continue to demand that Asarco clean up more than a century of lead, copper, arsenic and other heavy metal contamination found in a tri-state zone of the Paso del Norte border region. Although Asarco denies it is responsible for the contamination, United States Environmental Protection Agency and other investigators point the finger at the copper smelting giant. Asarco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy recently. CODIC's Flores said non-governmental organizations are preparing a complaint against the air model the State of Texas originally used in approving Asarco's state air quality permit back in the early 1990s. The model did not take into account the potential impact of air emissions from Asarco on either southern New Mexico or Ciudad Juarez . On a related note, Mexican Senator Jeffrey Jones, the president of the Mexican Senate's border affairs commission, announced the scheduling of a binational forum on Asarco for December 9. Jones said he expects lawmakers, local elected officials, non-governmental organizations and Asarco to sit down at the table in order to come up with "common pronouncement" about the smelter issue. Jones added it is his understanding that the alleged pollution from Asarco "always has been greater on the Juarez side than in El Paso ." Sources: Norte, October 28, 2005. Article by Edith Caballero. El Paso Times, October 28 and 29, 2005. Articles by Tammy Fonce-Olivas and Diana Washington Valdez . El Diario de Juarez, October 28, 2005. Article by Lorena Figueroa. The Memories of Murdered Women Transcend Borders As the fourth anniversary of the discovery of their bodies approaches, justice still eludes the eight women found raped, murdered and mutilated in a Ciudad Juarez cotton field in November 2001. No suspects are in jail for the crimes and the official investigation remains bandied about like a hot potato between Chihuahua state and Mexican federal law enforcement officials. In fact, the identities of 5 of the women are still not certain. But the cotton field victims aren't forgotten. This week a caravan of women's rights advocates from the Mexican interior arrived in Ciudad Juarez to honor the women and demand justice. About 100 people, including the Aztec dancers of Mexico City 's Guardians of Teotihuacan, held a ceremony at the cotton field on the traditional Latin American Day of the Dead celebration. Attending the event were Ciudad Juarez middle school students from an institution attended by the daughter of 1998 murder victim Perla Patricia Saenz Diaz. In another part of Ciudad Juarez , students from the Ignacio Allende High School went to the San Rafael cemetery on the Day of the Dead to pay homage to their classmate, Martha Lizbeth Hernandez, who was raped and murdered last year. She was the third student from the private high school to be sexually assaulted and murdered since 2001. In Washington this week, a United States House of Representatives subcommittee passed a long-stalled resolution that laments the femicides, places the issue of the murders on the US-Mexico bilateral agenda and urges the State of Chihuahua to bring to account officials who botched the Juarez murder cases. The sponsor of the measure, California Representative Hilda Solis (D-Ca.), said some progress has been made in addressing the femicides but more needs to be done. "Although there have been changes in the local and state governments, and there are some responses, we must continue pressuring the Mexican authorities to investigate the crimes and end the violence," Rep. Solis said. Solis' resolution is concurrently co-sponsored in the US Senate by New Mexico Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman. The Senate has yet to take action on the Juarez resolution. No immediate, public response to the House subcommittee's approval of the resolution was forthcoming from the Mexican government, and the vote wasn't even mentioned on the Internet sites of Ciudad Juarez newspapers. A multi-state tour in the United States publicizing the cases of murdered women in Mexico and Guatemala and sponsored by the Chicago-based Mexico Solidarity Network also wrapped up during the week. In Guatemala , women's rights advocates held a Day of the Dead event at Guatemala City 's General Cemetery in honor of murdered women. Charging that human rights have been shoved aside from the public agenda since the signing of the 1996 Guatemalan peace accords, Andrea Barrios of the Human Rights Legal Action Center Barrios appealed for authorities to begin curbing violence against women. According to the Guatemalan Survivors Association, 540 women have been murdered in Guatemala during 2005. On their leg of the tour, MSN organizers Jennifer Miller and Veronica Leyva visited Southwestern states where they spoke with the media, students and community members. They urged audiences to keep sending letters to the Mexican government and supporting the US Senate resolution. In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Miller and Leyva criticized the federal Mexican government's response to the Juarez murders, questioned the effectiveness of a program funded by the United States Agency for International Development to train Mexican law enforcement and called for greater oversight of private security and employment firms that play a huge role in Ciudad Juarez 's public life. A scandal erupted in Chihuahua state last September after a trio of private security guards was accused of murdering two women. It has to do with will, not just training," Leyva said. "All this doesn't function if there isn't a will to clarify matters." A Ciudad Juarez native and former maquiladora industry worker, Leyva said residents of her city had high hopes when former federal special prosecutor Maria Lopez Urbina arrived in early 2004. Instead of investigating the women's murders, however, Lopez Urbina named 120 current and former Chihuahua state government officials who were allegedly negligent in the murder investigations. No high-level officials who had ultimate authority over the investigations were fingered. Before being yanked from her post earlier this year, Lopez Urbina turned over the names of the functionaries to the Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office for possible legal action. The cases of two of the former officials are now tied up in the courts, and several of the individuals named by Lopez Urbina have filed defamation suits against the federal lawyer. What happened to all those functionaries who were amiss and negligent? Nothing." questioned Leyva. "(Government) is playing around. They're creating special prosecutors, commissions...only to say they are doing something. There isn't a serious attempt to do anything." Lopez Urbina's successor, Mirelli Rocatti, served three months at the post before abruptly resigning and not delivering a long-awaited report on the suspected serial murder cases that constitute about one-fourth of the known Juarez women's homicides since 1993. As the former head of the National Human Rights Commission, Rocatti oversaw the 1998 recommendation that scored officials of then-Governor Francisco Barrio's administration for negligence and gross irregularities in handling the cases of some murdered women from the 1990s. Activists criticized Barrio for generally ignoring the recommendations which, he argued, were politically-tainted. No successor to Rocatti has been named, and it is expected the Federal Attorney General's Office will dissolve the Ciudad Juarez special prosecutor's office- even though the cotton field and numerous other suspected serial cases remain unsolved. Despite the incessant demands of non-government organizations, the special prosecutor never examined the cases of murdered women in Chihuahua City whose cases fit the pattern of the Juarez rape-murders. In the bigger picture, Leyva and Miller said braking violence against women means overturning a vicious circle of poverty, drug-trafficking and abuse, corruption and impunity. In response to a high-profile public relations blitz to improve Ciudad Juarez 's image, “ Ciudad Juarez Is Better.” Leyva questioned the premises of the campaign. "Which (city) are they talking about? The one for the businessmen or the one for the workers and the majority of the people who live in it?" she asked. "I don't know how you can say that things are improving when bodies of women keep appearing." At least 30 women have been murdered, or their body parts found, in Ciudad Juarez so far this year- the highest number since 2002, when 35 victims were counted. Like previous years, a variety of documented and possible causes for the 2005 murders included sexual assaults, domestic violence, robberies, stray bullets, and narco-purges. The MSN activists also urged freedom for David Meza, a former California resident and immigrant rights' activist, who has been jailed in Chihuahua City for almost 16 months accused of the murder of his cousin, Neyra Azucena Cervantes. Meza contends he was tortured into making a false confession after demanding that the since-dissolved Chihuahua State Judicial Police undertake a serious investigation of his cousin's disappearance. Meza currently awaits sentencing. Additional sources: cimacnoticas.com/Cerigua, November 3, 2005. Articles by Miriam Ruiz and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, November 1, 2 and 3, 2005. Articles by Armando Rodriguez, Cecilia Guerrero and editorial staff. Washington Office on Latin America press release, November 2, 2005. Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces , New Mexico. A Border City's Discarded Babies
A
recently-born baby boy was hospitalized in Ciudad Juarez this past week
after being rescued from a movie theater trash can. Susana Sandoval, the
spokeswoman for the city’s DIF family shelter, said the baby was being
checked for infections from possible contact with bacteria. The discovery
of the baby in a bathroom garbage receptacle at the Misiones Cinepolis
theater was but the latest case of abandoned children in Ciudad Juarez.
The DIF, which houses abandoned minors, has registered 51 cases of
abandoned children in Ciudad Juarez from January to October 13 of this
year. Mexican law permits adoption of abandoned minors after a month passes without a child being claimed by biological relatives. With regard to the Misiones Cinepolis baby, Sandoval said 10 couples contacted the DIF with offers to adopt the newborn but the child welfare institution first must wait to see if the mother or other relative shows up to reclaim the child. "Abandoning him is a negative for (the mother), but it has to be determined what caused her to do it," Sandoval said.
Southern Migrants, Children Sustain the Blood of the Chile Empire They are back. Transported from central and southern Mexico, migrant workers toil in the hot, late summer sun to fill sacks with hot chiles. Every year, the chile fields of Chihuahua state are engraved with the footprints of harvesters from Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Puebla, and Guanajuato states. Spanish and indigenous languages mix and rise from the fiery fields, peppered with English words used here and there. This year is no different. Forming a floating army of about 20,000 workers, entire families arrive on transportation-paid jaunts to spend the harvest season picking chilaca, serrano, cayenne, and jalapeno chiles. "The people journey to the north," said Esteban Ortega Martinez, whose task consists of registering each kilo of picked chiles. "How funny. Those of us from here want to go (north) and those from the south, come here." The principal destination for the migrants is the northern Chihuahua chile belt situated in the municipalities of Casas Grandes, Nuevo Casas Grandes, Janos, and Ascension, an agricultural town not far from the New Mexico border. An estimated 26,000 acres of chile flowers in the region. Pickers arriving for the harvest are reportedly paid this season about 5 cents for each kilo of plucked serrano chiles. A hardworking couple sweating from sun-up to sun-down might pick about 700 kilos, bringing in approximately $35 dollars for their day's labor. In the Chihuhaua chile fields, child labor is a constant. One picker, a 10-year-old girl from Oaxaca state named Jessica, said she hoped to get candies from the money she turned over to her father. Jessica's mother, Carolina Palacios, added the harvest income allowed the family to purchase a refrigerator, television and other electric appliances. This season’s chile pickers aren't finding the best harvest conditions the region has seen. Plant disease has killed off almost one-quarter of 2005's crop. Salvador Alvidrez, the father of chile farmers in the Colonia Guadalupe Victoria near the New Mexico border, voiced alarm that sparse rainfall and dried-up water wells once used for irrigation are imperiling farmers’ prospects Northern Chihuahua's chile industry took off in anticipation of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. Dependent on questionable water supplies drawn from underground aquifers, the crop nonetheless proved a handsome money-maker for some growers. The boom is also credited with displacing a large chunk of the important New Mexico chile crop grown across the border, especially New Mexico grown-jalapenos. A great portion of the Chihuahua chile harvest is contracted by U.S. growers and processors who supply the market on this side of the border. Source: El Universal, August 30, 2005. Article by Alejandro Suverza. A Military Mystique for the Municipal Police Involved in everything from combating drug trafficking to enforcing environmental laws, the Mexican military's hand in civilian law enforcement keeps extending its reach. In Ciudad Juarez as well as in other regions of Mexico, the military's influence is even being stamped in the formation of local police officers. In recent interviews with the Diario de Juarez newspaper, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia Lardizabal and Public Security Secretary Juan Salgado Vazquez, commented on the recent training of more than 1,000 municipal police officers by the Mexican army's 20th Motorized Cavalry Regiment. According to Salgado, new cadets were trained by the army to acquire values emphasizing authority, honorability, work discipline, and service to the public. "This has been encouraged in the last few months," Salgado said. Ciudad Juarez policemen recently underwent a 20-day training course conducted by military instructors that focused on physical conditioning, personal defense, firearms practice, vehicle operation, and detention of suspects. Following up on the army's training, city police officers are currently learning about firearms, duty, discipline, and other topics from the Federal Preventive Police, a police force which is largely made up of military personnel. One objective of the training is to form paramilitary police capabilities, according to Mayor Murguia. In January 2005, the Ciudad Juarez police christened the Delta Group along military lines. "Delta Group is a group of paramilitary police," Mayor Murguia said. "They will never be soldiers, but they are paramilitaries. They have the military vocation, the mystique, discipline, and military methods." In Mexico, a long-running debate which has even reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) rages on over the appropriateness of military involvement in civilian law enforcement. While the IACHR concurred with Mexican critics of militarized law enforcement and recommended several years ago that the Mexican armed forces stay in their barracks, an increasing number of civilian politicians and public opinion leaders from across the political spectrum are turning to and relying on the Mexican military as the answer to the country's public security crisis. The most well-known intervention of the armed forces is in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, where an army general is overseeing public security. In Ciudad Juarez and elsewhere, the Mexican armed forces are quietly training civilian police officers. Figures provided to the non-profit Washington Office on Latin America by Mexico's Defense Ministry (Sedena) in response to a request made under the country's freedom of information law, revealed large-scale training programs underway from 2001 to mid-2004. Sedena's statistics reported the armed forces training 18, 154 local and state police officers in Mexico during the time period covered. Additionally, Sedena provided training to 529 personnel from the Federal Attorney General's Office in 2003 alone. Sources: El Manana (Nuevo Laredo) August 25, 2005. Article by Mauricio Belloc. El Diario de Juarez, August 19, 2005. Article by Sandra Rodriguez. Washington Office on Latin America.
Overcrowding, Classroom Shortages Greet New School Year Nearly 25 million Mexican students enrolled in basic education returned to school the week of August 29 for the start of the 2005-2006 academic year. But in Ciudad Juarez, thousands of youngsters were unable to initially find an available classroom or teacher. Overcrowding, waiting lists and teacher shortages greeted many families and their children, especially residents of the fast-growing southeastern section of the border city. Some blamed the problems on sudden population shifts to growing subdivisions, but others complained of poor educational planning. An estimated 6,000 students in the Misiones de Real, El Campanario and other subdivisons were forced to look for schools outside their immediate district because of the classroom shortage. Pedro Santoyo, the director of the Pedro E. Medina Elementary School, summed up the situation confronting numerous schools. "We can't receive any more (students)," said Santoyo. "The classrooms are at their maximum capacity, and the teachers cannot serve a higher number of students." Santoyo said the morning shift at his school already has 900 students divided into 18 classes with 50 pupils each. Another school in the Misiones del Real subdivision, still under construction, has 480 students split into finished classrooms with 80 students each. Rebeca Luna Martinez, the assistant director of Pedro E. Medina Elementary, said the ideal student-teacher ratio is between 30 and 35 students, but higher numbers are the reality. High class loads result in problems of maintaining order and attending students' academic needs, Luna added. Ministry of Public Education regulations limit 40 students per classroom. Chihuahua state education officials toured the over-saturated school zones this week, pledging to complete new primary schools and classrooms being built. Guillermo Narro Garza, the general education director for the state's northern zone which includes Ciudad Juarez, said the teacher shortage was being addressed by the arrival of 207 new teachers this week. According to Narro, the educators are recent graduates of teachers' institutes located in the Chihuahua cities of Saucillo and Parral. Victor Manuel Salas Diaz, the director of a Ciudad Juarez parents' association, contended that the classroom chaos was a long-running problem connected to a lack of planning and funding. "This is nothing new," said Salas, "and it is nothing new to say there is a certain amount of incompetency among the educational authorities in the planning of building of new classrooms to cover the educational demand." Sources: Diario de Juarez, August 24, 2005. Article by Guadalupe Felix. Norte, August 23 and 22, 2005. Articles by Margarita Hernandez. El Universal/Notimex, August 21, 2005.
Shopping in the Age of Imported Icons Long lines of Ciudad Juarez motorists and pedestrians jammed the Santa Fe bridge to El Paso, Texas, this past weekend to take advantage of bargain shopping on the U.S. side. Lured by the state of Texas’ 7th annual sales tax holiday, shoppers crowded downtown El Paso stores and outlying malls in search of inexpensive clothing and school supplies. Juarenses traveling 45 minutes farther away to stores in Las Cruces, New Mexico, also found a tax-free retail scene, and perhaps along the way they heard the voice of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson on the radio touting New Mexico’s first-ever sales tax holiday weekend. In contrast, many stores in the downtown Juarez shopping district were virtually empty. Like thousands of other Juarez residents, Manuel Vazquez tolerated the long wait to pass through U.S. customs and immigration. “One has to find the way to save and see variety and quality,” said Vazquez. Budget-minded El Paso resident Jorge Lopez expressed similar sentiments at the busy Cielo Vista Mall in the border city. “For me it’s just a few bucks, but for some people a few bucks can make a difference because they have four to six kids. I just have two,” said Lopez. Texas shoppers were expected to save more than $47 million dollars in state and local sales taxes. Thanks to Juarez consumers, some El Paso businesses reported a dramatic leap in sales during the sales tax holiday weekend. Salvador Dominguez, an employee of the Princesa store, said more people were on the streets and business was up 60 percent compared to last year’s sales tax holiday, even with the peso buying fewer dollars. Dominguez named notebooks, pencils, erasers and other school-related merchandise as popular sellers. Filing in and out of stores, shoppers also encountered a burgeoning inventory of cheap goods bearing Mexican icons but which are manufactured in Asia. Standing out are statuettes of Juan Diego and the Virgin of Guadalupe, Aztec calendars, national emblems, and caps with sports teams’ names like the Guadalajara Chivas. The iconic merchandise is made in China or Vietnam. One retail employee said traditional covers once made in Aguascalientes, Mexico, are now imported from the Far East. “The Chinese copied them, and now they also make them,” said the employee. While Mexican products are being nudged out at home by foreign imports, government and business circles are trying to find markets for their goods abroad. Toward this end, Chihuahua state officials recently met with members of the chambers of commerce of Costa Rica and Panama to discuss sending products from Ciudad Juarez and other cities to Central America. Hector Valles Alvelais, the Chihuahua secretary of commercial development and tourism, said the administration of Governor Jose Reyes Baeza is especially interested in using exports as a growth strategy for medium and small-sized businesses. The Reyes administration is proposing new Central American markets for wood moldings, dried meat, chile, salsa, arts and crafts, candies, cheese, tortillas, and traditional clothing, all produced in Chihuahua.
Sources: Norte, August 7, 2005. Articles by Cesar Ruiz. El Paso Times, August 6, 2005. Article by Darren Meritz. Norte, August 6, 2005. Article by Angel Zubia Garcia.
The Proliferation of Portable Casinos Like mushrooms after a rainstorm, they keep spreading. And people like Francisca Figueroa find them intoxicating. The Ciudad Juarez resident is among a growing number of customers who plop their pesos into portable machines with the intention of winning money. Initially dropping five pesos into a "luck machine" situated outside the fast food restaurants near a heavily-visited social security institute hospital, Figueroa was gleeful to eventually earn 90 pesos. Eduarda Franco, the concessionaire of the luck machine, said she installed the slot so "children could have fun." Franco explained that she divides the proceeds from the day's take with the machine's owner. "But it's not a lot," contended Franco. "It's mainly for the people to have fun." The small restaurant/slot operator didn't disclose the identity of the luck machine's owner. The bad news for Franco and her customers is that the luck machine is illegal. "They don't have permission to operate," said Alberto Reyes Rojas, the director of Ciudad Juarez's municipal commerce department. "(Luck machines) aren't allowed because they are casino class." Current Mexican law permits some forms of gaming like off-track betting and bingo, but casinos are still mainly prohibited. Reyes said his inspectors confiscated 200 luck machines and levied fines of up to $110 dollars on violators during the last three months. He added that machine owners can regain their properties but can't reinstall them. Some say the luck machines are surpassing regular video games in popularity. They are sprouting up in places with brisk human traffic like the fast food locals near the social security hospital and in mom-and-pop grocery stores. Elvira de la Torres, the proprietor of a small store in the Division del Norte neighborhood of the city, admitted she has had one of the machines for the past two months but didn't know if it was illegal. "People come and sometimes they win and sometimes they lose," said de la Torres. "But it's mainly to have fun." Source: El Diario, July 26, 2005. Article by Pedro Sanchez Briones.
Veteran Farmworkers Anticipate Compensation Fund
Following years of protests and pressure, the Mexican Congress recently approved the creation of a special fund to compensate former Mexican guest workers for deductions made from their paychecks decades ago. The guest workers were enrolled in a legal program of contract labor from 1942 to 1964 for the United States known as the Bracero Program. Most worked on farms, though some labored on the railroads during World War Two. Beginning in the 1990s, a movement erupted in Mexico and the United States demanding that money which was previously deducted from braceros’ paychecks and sent back to the Mexican government finally be returned to them. Despite the fanfare over the announcement of the compensation fund, surviving braceros await the details. In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Ignacio Ibarra, the project coordinator for the El Paso-based Border Agricultural Workers Center (CTAF) and Bracero Project, said he expected details of how the money will be disbursed to be announced in July by a technical group made up of representatives of Mexican federal agencies. Until then, Ibarra said ex-braceros don’t know exactly how much they will be paid, where money will be distributed, or who will be eligible. “There’s a lot of confusion about the whole thing.” said Ibarra. “We’re trying to give the technical group some suggestions how to do it,” he said. “One of the suggestions is that older people, handicapped people, get the money first, and widows too.” Ibarra estimated that about $20 million dollars in compensation will be paid, though there is talk of paying that amount every year for five years. Ibarra said El Paso’s Bracero Project has registered 5-6,000 former braceros in El Paso-Juarez-southern New Mexico alone, not including the Juarez Valley, with new people coming in all the time. Altogether, the group has registered 80,000 former braceros in Mexico and the United States, added Ibarra. Additionally, other organizations have registered braceros throughout the Mexico and the U.S. Given the number of former braceros potentially involved, Ibarra rated as “not sufficient” the compensation figures being discussed. According to Mexican press reports, the Mexican federal government is slated to provide approximately 70 percent of the compensation money while state governments kick in the remainder. At a recent meeting of Mexican governors, most reportedly gave their thumbs up to the compensation fund but some leaders conveyed hesitation because of tight state budgets. In light of upcoming presidential and congressional elections in Mexico, Ibarra expressed concern that opportunists might charge braceros unnecessary fees for brokering access to their money, or that the fund will be used to further political careers. Ibarra said the Bracero Project will hold mass meetings on June 18 in El Paso and on July 10 in Ciudad Juarez to inform ex-braceros about preparing for the compensation fund. On the U.S. side, the CTAF and Bracero Project are attempting to get Congressional recognition of the role played by braceros during World War Two and afterward. Although the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two is being commemorated this year, Ibarra contended that history is being remembered without mentioning the Mexican braceros who kept the country’s farms producing and the railroads rolling while U.S. citizens went off to fight overseas. “Back then, they were welcomed. They were serviceable. Now that they are older, they don’t get any recognition in the history books,” said Ibarra. “(Congressional recognition) would justify what they came to do in the U.S., and it would open a new chapter in our history.” Because some braceros were ill-treated or never returned home alive, Ibarra said the CTAF and Bracero Project are exploring ways to generate compensation from the United States government for workers who died in accidents or from sickness, or whose contractual agreements were not met by employers. Kent Paterson Crisis Inspires a Cross-Border Cultural Revival As a youth, Ernesto Ontiveros remembers venturing with his father into the fields of the Juarez Valley in search of plump melons and fresh corncobs. And those were the days, recalls Ontiveros, when the Juarez Valley “used to be Number One in cotton quality.” Nowadays, the retired teacher scowls at the circumstances of local agriculture. Encroaching urbanization, adverse economics, toxic dumping, and the salinization of the land have all taken their toll on the valley. Ontiveros and others on both sides of the border intend to turn things around for the rural sector and the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande River that nourishes it. For the fourth year in a row, some Juarez-area residents and their allies to the north in Albuquerque, New Mexico, organized simultaneous celebrations on May 15, San Ysidro Day, an old tradition honoring the Roman Catholic patron saint of agriculture. “For us, San Ysidro represents the union of humanity with the earth. That’s we bless the water, plants, tools of the countryside, and natural world; and so that the creator gives sustenance our families,” read a joint statement by celebrants from Mexico and the United States. In the Juarez Valley about a half-hour drive from the big city of the same name, church-goers, community activists and ejiditarios (title-holders of collectively-owned farm lands) held religious processions, watched matachine dancers and heard talks about the politics of farming in the free trade economy. “We ask for rain, a good harvest,” said Natalia Fernando Vega of the San Isidro ejido. The Juarez Valley event was supported by former braceros, environmentalists and groups belonging to the Juarez-El Paso based Border Regional Coordinator of Non-Governmental Organizations (COREF). In Albuquerque, New Mexico, scores of people participated in the San Ysidro festivities held on an old farm in the metro area’s semi-rural South Valley. After completing a procession and ceremony in which the waters of an irrigation ditch, or acequia, were blessed, guests listened to New Mexican music, observed Aztec dancing took in the whirl of brightly-costumed schoolchildren tapping traditional Mexican steps. Old-time foods like biscochitos were served up to hungry stomachs. Information booths about traditional agriculture, solar energy, the river ecosystem, and more rounded out the open-air festival. A diverse variety of groups endorsed the event, including the Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico Acequia Association, Holy Family Catholic Community, Rio Grande Community Development Corporation, and Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, among others. According to San Ysidro Day organizers, activists from Mexico and the United States decided to jointly celebrate the day several years ago after conferring about the state of the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande River, the common source of irrigation waters for indigenous and Spanish-speaking communities in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico. Environmental degradation caused the U.S. conservation group American Rivers to declare the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande one of America’s most endangered rivers in 2003. Representing COREF, Ontiveros says one of the main goals of the joint celebration is to “educate the largest number” of people possible about the importance of protecting the river’s water quality from north to south. Albuquerque-area santero Jesse Anzures, who carves wood saints like the one used in this year’s San Ysidro fiesta, says the celebration is reviving a tradition which was dying out in central New Mexico due to the decline of agriculture. Anzures says he is struck by the commonalities between rural communities on the edges of both Albuquerque and Ciudad Juarez, places where water contamination, disappearing farmland and the memories of displaced rural families are evident. “The South Valley of Albquerque is almost a copy of the south valley of Juarez,” adds Anzures. “Their water is foul, ours is almost gone.” Jaime Chavez, a San Ysidro Day promoter and an activist with both the New Mexico-based Mexicano Land Education and Conservation Trust and COREF, says San Ysidro is an occasion to refocus attention on water and land issues spanning the Southwest and borderlands. Chavez says cross- border activists want the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande declared a patrimony of humanity, and a broad review undertaken of water treaties between the U.S. and Mexico. Chavez adds that the water issue has moved organizers to also examine the land rights question, given the similar stresses faced by Mexican ejiditarios and members of the mercedes, the old New Mexican land grants awarded during the Spanish and Mexican colonial periods. “What’s important is that after we bless our waters, we do follow-up work,” says Chavez. Additional source: Diario de Juarez, May 16, 2005. Article by Araly Castanon.
Like in other parts of Mexico and Latin America, May 10, Mother’s Day, was celebrated in Ciudad Juarez with gifts, musical homages and festivities. But for some families it was a day filled with grief and anguish. Only days before the holiday, 20-year-old Maria Estrella Cuevas Cuevas was planning a small party with friends and family. The celebration never happened. On Thursday morning, May 5, Cuevas’s shoeless body was found on a street in one of Juarez’s working-class colonias. The mother of two infants, ages one and two, Cuevas had been raped, beaten and stabbed. Cuevas reportedly was last seen at party with friends during the evening prior to the discovery of her body. According to her brother, Gabriel Angel Gonzalez Cuevas, his sister worked as a temporary domestic worker to make ends meet. Cuevas’s sister, Socorro, added that the murdered young woman had dreams of visiting Tijuana and seeing the ocean one day. Just hours before Cuevas’ murder, 48-year-old housewife Tomasa Echeverria was apparently bludgeoned to death with a hammer inside her Juarez home. Echeverria’s body was discovered by her son Martin Soto, who informed members of the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency (the former Chihuahua State Judicial Police) that Echeverria’s husband had recently threatened to kill his wife. No arrests have been made in either the Cuevas or Echeverria homicides. Special Prosecutor for Women’s Homicides Cony Velarde announced after the Cuevas killing that three men were detained on drug charges in connection with the case, but the trio was later freed by the federal attorney general’s office. The Cuevas and Echeverria murders brought to at least 13 the total number of femicides in Juarez since the beginning of 2005. Additionally, authorities recovered two skeletons of women believed to have been previously murdered. In another development that’s jarred the border city, the family of 7-year-old Airis Estrella Enriquez continued to anguish over the fate of their child. The second-grader was reported last seen playing with friends in a working-class neighborhood on the afternoon of May 2, when she might have been forced into a dark-colored car with tinted windows driven by an older man. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Juarez, Renato Ascencio Leon, then made a public appeal for the return of Airis, as did Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza. Airis was described by her teacher, Miriam Solis Facio, as a shy but excellent student. Soto said the young girl hailed from a family with few resources and wasn’t able to afford the class photo in which she appears, or contribute a $3 dollar donation for Children’s Day, the very day she disappeared. Posters of the missing girl have been widely distributed in both Juarez and El Paso. Brigades of neighbors, classmates, police, and the citizenry in general have been fanning out across the city in a fruitless search to date for Airis. Media reports named a school teacher, Luis Tomas Contreras Millan, as a suspect in Airis’ kidnapping, but the educator quickly proclaimed his innocence and accused authorities of trying to create another scapegoat. Sources: Norte de Ciudad Juarez, May 11, 2005. Article by Carlos Huerta. Diario de Juarez, May 11, 2005. Article by Javier Saucedo Alcala. Diario de Juarez, May 10, 2005. Article by Guadalupe Felix. El Mexicano (Ciudad Juarez), May 10, 2005. Article by Ruben Rios Macias. Diario de Juarez, May 8, 2005. Article by Ramon Chaparro. Norte, May 8, 2005. Articles by Carlos Huerta and Teofila Alvarado. Norte, May 6, 2005. Articles by Salvador Castro. Diario de Juarez, May 6, 2005. Article by Javier Saucedo Alcala El Universal, May 6, 2005. Article by Luis Carlos Cano. New Juárez High School to Accept City's Brightest Students In addition to the usual high school subjects taught in Cd.
Juárez, the Preparatoria Central will offer a program
heavy in English, business classes, and computer and technology
instruction. The city's best teachers will teach at the new school.
Students will receive a scholarship equivalent to US$100 per
month and will be served two meals a day. Students will not have
to pay the usual registration fees and will receive all their
school supplies for free. Reyes also stated that the school's program is being paid
for by private sources. Zuly Alvarado's body was found in a field in the Juárez Valley where the bodies of other young rape-murder victims have been found in previous years. However, police investigators said from the beginning that Zuly Alvarado had not been raped and that they did not consider her to be one of the city's serial-killing victims. Police also said that their initial investigation was into
Alvarado's family and noted that her mother had been previously
arrested for prostituting some of her daughters, including Zuly
Alvarado. State police told El Diario that Verónica Alvarado changed her story in front of the judge. According to police, Verónica Alvarado told them that the two were fighting over a 37-year old man. Earlier in the investigation, Verónica Alvarado told
police that this man was her sister's killer but police questioned
him and determined that he was not responsible for the girl's
death, a police source said. Police were alerted to the crime at 5:25 a.m. on Sunday morning
by an unidentified prostitute that had gone through the plaza
and heard someone being beaten. She then saw what appeared to
be two people having sexual relations and called police. Ciudad Juárez's three public universities, the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez (UACJ), the Instituto Tecnológico de Ciudad Juárez (Tec) and the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua (UACh), will only accept 61.59 % of applicants this year, according to an article in the Cd. Juárez newspaper, El Diario. Students not admitted to these institutions will have to wait another year before reapplying or will have to enroll in a private university. More than 3,700 students will sit for the UACJ entrance exam
but just 2,242 will be admitted. |