Diana Washington Valdez blog

Video of investigative journalists at UC symposium

2012-01-31T15:55:00.000-06:00

http://fora.tv/2010/04/17/Logan_Symposium_Consequences_of_Investigative_Reporting#fullprogram

It took place in 2010 at the University of California

Exclusive: President Felipe Calderon's term is not the bloodiest in Mexico

2012-01-26T09:59:00.000-06:00

Exclusive in the El Paso Times today
Miguel De la Madrid's presidency had highest homicide rates of five past Mexican presidents
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_19824147

FNS: U.S. to build new mega U.S. embassy in Mexico City

2012-01-23T10:42:00.000-06:00

[Eyes are on Mexico. The U.S. CIA director and the U.S. Speaker of the House met separately with Mexican President Felipe Calderon within the past two weeks.//WLM]

January 22, 2012
Security News
Reprinted with permission
Super Embassy on Order
The U.S. government is moving ahead with plans to construct a large new embassy in Mexico City. Slated for the upscale Polanco section of the Mexican capital, the planned complex is envisioned to cover about 13 acres on a plot of land that was purchased from the Colgate-Palmolive company. Estimated to cost between $350 and $450 million, the new quarters for U.S. government agencies operating in Mexico are expected to be fully completed by 2019. In opening bids for the construction, Washington specified that the architecture had to conform with LEED Platinum green building designs.
The Mexico City project is among the latest in a series of building renovations for U.S. diplomatic and foreign policy functions in Mexico and other parts of the world. Last summer, for example, a new consular building covering 100,000 square feet and costing $120 million opened for business in the border city of Tijuana, Baja California. Besides processing 190,000 visas annually, the U.S. Consulate is an important outpost in counter-narcotics work and houses agencies such as ICE, the DEA, the FBI and others.
"We are basically a mini-embassy representing the U.S. government in this part of the world," Steven Kashkett, U.S. counsel general in Tijuana, said at the time of his new office's opening last year.
In good measure, the investment in and upgrade of U.S. diplomatic offices in Mexico reflects the growing importance of law enforcement, military assistance and private defense contracting in the
bilateral relationship between Washington and Mexico City. Mexico is second only to Afghanistan/Pakistan as the nation of priority for US national security planners.
In December, the Obama administration dispatched Captain Colin J. Kilrain to oversee military affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Nominated for rear admiral, Kilrain was previously responsible for counter-terrorism in the National Security Council. A veteran of the Persian Gulf, Balkan, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Kilrain was associated with the elite U.S. Navy SEAL team prior to taking on other responsibilities in the War on Terror.
Kilrain's Mexico City appointment could signal a renewed push by the Obama and Calderon administrations to attack and decapitate the leadership of organized crime organizations before the Mexican president's (and possibly Obama's) term in office ends later this year. The apprehension or elimination of 15 remaining capos on a most wanted list is of special interest to the two allied governments.
Since the launch of the bilateral, anti-drug Merida Initiative, U.S. security-related activities have expanded enormously in Mexico, as has the need for secure space. According to Mexican media reports, a building near the current U.S. Embassy houses Pentagon staff and personnel from an alphabet's soup of other agencies dedicated to implementing the Merida strategy. The company that is awarded the contract for building the new embassy will have to pass a U.S. national security clearance.
Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

Femicides in Juarez, Mexico, continue in the New Year, while New Mexico investigates serial murders in that state

2012-01-09T10:19:00.002-06:00

By Kelly McKenzie
Special for WLM
Jan. 8, 2012

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico -- Mexican authorities are investigating the murder of a young woman whose semi-nude body was found this morning in a desert patch in the city's Parajes San Isidro colonia.
The victim, who has not been identified, is estimated to be between 17 and 24 years old.
The grisly find comes a day after Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate for president for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), conducted a campaign visit to the border.
[Information will be updated as more details are released]

The West Mesa (New Mexico) murders

In other matters, the police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are reaching out to the public once again for leads on the murders of 11 women whose bodies were discovered in the West Mesa area in 2010.
They had disappeared between 2003 and 2005 before their bodies were found. The strongest theories to explain the murders include a serial killer or gangs.
According to police, FBI profilers suspect a serial killer.
Kelly McKenzie
Any tips sent to this website will be forwarded to the corresponding authorities.
####

Video Christmas card to wish you a Merry Christmas Feliz Navidad

2011-12-24T16:48:00.003-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PIVxT2LRCE&feature=youtu.be

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Feliz Navidad y un prospero 2012 para todos Ustedes

Could U.S. agent/U.S. contract agent be witness to torture in Mexico?

2011-12-18T14:39:00.000-06:00

Read about American Shohn Huckabee's case. He filed a complaint with U.S. State Department officials alleging torture by soldiers in Juarez, Mexico. Shohn also alleges he was imprisoned on false drug charges. An English speaker, who is suspected to be American, may have witnessed the torture that included mock execution, beatings and electrocution.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_19571634

El Paso Times: U.S. father's ordeal to rescue son in Mexican jail

2011-12-08T10:05:00.000-06:00

Kelly McKenzie recommends stories today in El Paso Times about Shohn Huckabee and his father Kevin Huckabee:
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_19493136

Read also about Cynthia Kiecker and Ulises Perzabal, a couple that Chihuahua state police tortured into confessing to a murder they did not commit.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_19494764?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.com

CIMAC: Lawyer says latest former Juarez murder suspect could be another scapegoat

2011-12-06T11:11:00.000-06:00

Story below reprinted by permission from CIMAC Noticias in Mexico City:

Fiscalía “atrapa” por cuarta vez a presunto homicida de Esmeralda Herrera
Se repite la historia en caso Campo Algodonero

By Anayeli García Martínez/Dec. 2, 2011

México, DF, 2 dic 11 (CIMAC).\- Sin pruebas suficientes, la Fiscalía del estado de Chihuahua, pretende juzgar a Eduardo Chávez Marín, por el asesinato de Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, una de las ocho víctimas encontradas en el “Campo Algodonero”, en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, advirtió Karla Michele Salas, abogada de la Asociación Nacional de Abogados Democráticos (ANAD).

La tarde de ayer la Unidad Especializada en Investigación para Homicidios de Mujeres presentó a Eduardo Chávez Marín para que rindiera su declaración sobre el feminicidio de Esmeralda.

En entrevista con Cimacnoticias, la abogada de la ANAD quien litigó conjuntamente con el Comité de América Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer (Cladem) el caso ante la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CoIDH), explicó que se giró una orden de presentación contra Chávez Marín para que volviera a presentar su declaración, sin embargo, será en un término de 48 horas cuando se defina su situación legal.

Está es la cuarta vez que Chávez Marín es presentado ante las autoridades pero de acuerdo con la abogada no hay pruebas fehacientes para vincularlo con el homicidio de la joven de 15 años toda vez que lo único que se tiene son testimonios “de oídas” que jurídicamente no tienen valor probatorio.

¿CHIVO EXPIATORIO?

Según información difundida en los medios por la Fiscalía de Chihuahua, Chávez Marín estaba prófugo de la justicia desde 2006, cuando las autoridades de la ciudad fronteriza iniciaron su búsqueda tras las indagatorias y testimonios levantados que asegura la instancia, “se obtuvieron”, para acreditar su presunta responsabilidad en el delito.

Salas recordó que el día que desapareció Esmeralda (29 de octubre de 2001) se vería con Eduardo, quien entonces trabajaba en una imprenta. Sin embargo, él ha declarado anteriormente que el encuentro nunca se dio.

Señaló que no es de extrañar que esta noticia se dé a unos días de que se cumplan dos años de que la CoIDH sentenció al Estado mexicano por su responsabilidad en la desaparición y posterior muerte de tres de ocho jóvenes encontradas en el Campo Algodonero en 2001.

Además alertó que aunque Chávez Marín tiene antecedentes penales por intento de violación y por violencia intrafamiliar, no tiene el perfil de los asesinos de las jóvenes encontradas en 2001, por lo que advirtió que el Estado mexicano pretende mantener la hipótesis de que los ocho homicidios fueron hechos aislados.

Explicó que durante los últimos diez años las autoridades han presentado a 10 personas como responsables de los homicidios, sin embargo, “nunca han existido pruebas jurídicamente válidas para acusarlas”, por lo que expresó su preocupación de que una vez más se trate de “un chivo expiatorio”.

Señaló que los asesinos de Esmeralda, Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez y Claudia Ivette González, siguieron el mismo “modus operandi”: las desaparecieron, torturaron, las privaron de la vida, y arrojaron los cuerpos en el mismo lugar.

INVESTIGACIONES CUESTIONADAS

Cuando el caso de Campo Algodonero se analizó en la CoIDH, el entonces Comisionado de la ONU, fiscal Carlos Castresana, presentó un peritaje en materia de investigación criminal donde determinó que estos crímenes eran perpetrados por agentes del Estado o por personas que actuaban con anuencia de las autoridades.

El experto puntualizó que se podía concluir que la investigación realizada por las Procuradurías de Justicia estatal y General de la República “no cumplía con los estándares internacionales de debida diligencia en la investigación”.

En ese momento el ex comisionado de la ONU expresó: “Las circunstancias que mejor caracterizan los asesinatos de mujeres de Ciudad Juárez, y entre ellos muy significativamente los crímenes del Campo Algodonero, no son las de los crímenes en sí, sino las de la falta de respuesta y diligencia institucional para el esclarecimiento y persecución de los crímenes”.

Aunque los casos de feminicidio hicieron que las autoridades crearan la Fiscalía Especial para la Investigación de Homicidios de Mujeres, diez años después de las muertes de Campo Algodonero no se han podido esclarecer los asesinatos y sólo se tiene a un presunto culpable: Eduardo Chávez Marín.

En este escenario la abogada recordó que de acuerdo con la sentencia, emitida el 9 de noviembre de 2009, el Estado mexicano tiene que informar periódicamente cómo va el cumplimiento de las recomendaciones internacionales, por lo que no descartó que esta detención sea para que “tenga algo que informar”, el próximo 10 de diciembre, segundo aniversario de la sentencia.
###

Girl's body returned to family after morgue held her for two years

2011-12-01T11:11:00.001-06:00

Copyright (c) 2011,WLM
By Kelly McKenzie/WLM
Nov. 30, 2011
JUAREZ, MEXICO - Officials with the state of Chihuahua delivered this week the body of a 15-year-old girl who was reported missing three years ago to her relatives.
Adriana Sarmiento Enriquez, a student at the Allende Preparatory School in the city's downtown, vanished in 2008.
Her body was found Nov. 5, 2009 in a cemetery in San Agustin, a village in the Valle de Juarez, east of Zaragoza.
Her family said officials would not let them view the bodies they held in the morgue to see if she was among the deceased.
The family provided DNA samples for identification purposes, but was not informed until this month that the results from a U.S. lab proved the match to be positive.
The girl's mother said she recognized the girl's clothing, and also would have recognized her by the dental work the girl had done before she turned up missing. In other words, Adriana Sarmiento's mother said she didn't need a DNA test to identify her daughter.
Officials did not explain why it took them two years to notify the family that they had her body in the morgue.
The Los Angeles Press online news service published a story this week alleging that Chihuahua state officials had uncovered a clandestine grave with the bodies of 15 young young women in the Valle de Juarez.
The story, citing unnamed government sources, said the morgue held more than 20 bodies of teenage girls and young women.
Officials denied the account.
Several months ago, the Mexican press published stories about a clandestine grave uncovered in the Valle de Juarez. Technicians from the medical examiner's office were photographed during the excavation work at the site, where they had unearthed five sets of remains.
The authorities never provided a follow-up report on their findings.
According to the Mexican National Commission on Human Rights, a government agency, about 100 girls and young women were reported missing in Juarez this year.
Several of the missing females had attended the Allende Preparatory School or were last seen in the downtown sector.
###

Website story alleges officials are hiding bodies in Juarez, Mexico

2011-11-29T15:49:00.001-06:00

[We post this link with the caveat that the story has not been confirmed through independent sources. It is a fact, however, that at least 100 girls and women have been reported missing in Juarez, Mexico, this year.//K.McKenzie]

"http://www.losangelespress.org/mujeres-guardadas-en-la-morgue-de-juarez/"

U.S. author had recommended international tribunal for Mexico

2011-11-28T11:34:00.003-06:00

Kelly McKenzie would like to bring the following

to readers's attention

Complaint against Mexican officials and drug kingpin filed before the International Criminal Court at The Hague
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_19423142

By permission by author of "The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women": 2006; pages 301-302,

"Recommendations
An international tribunal must investigate the officials who presided over Chihuahua state and the federal government when these crimes occurred. Such an international proceeding must reach back to the time of Mexico’s “dirty war,” back to the murder of journalist Manuel Buendia,to the hundreds of executions and disappearances attributed to the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, and to the femicides.
There is overwhelming circumstantial evidence that criminal bands used the femicides as terrorist weapons. A succession of Mexican presidents, governors and generals could have stopped this but did not.They had the power to intervene and save lives. Instead, they may have helped to cover up a series of crimes that had a horribly destructive effect
on the society. Although they did not kill anyone directly, their negligence, omission or corruption resulted in untold tragedies they could have prevented. It is reasonable to assume that people will be killed as a result of officials entering into agreements with drug cartels. In this sense,
the deaths are premeditated. That is why these are crimes against humanity.

An institution such as the International Criminal Court at The Hague may try Colombian government officials who facilitated the drug trade, as well as the drug barons who so corrupted police and other officials that
the slaughter of men, women and children can continue without end. It is but a continuation of the former “dirty wars.” Such a tribunal should identify the highest-ranking responsible parties and hold them accountable.
Another option is for parties with legal standing to follow the course of the Center for Justice and Accountability and file U.S. civil lawsuits under the Alien Tort Statute or the Torture Victim Protection Act, against human rights violators. The center based in San Francisco, California,
helped to set legal precedents with a 2004 judgment (Chavez v. Carranza) against a former El Salvador official in Modesto, California, who was implicated in the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El
Salvador, and in 2005 in a federal jury case (Doe v. Saravia) against a man who was held liable for torture and extrajudicial slayings in that country.
The U.S. State Department can do much more to facilitate a long-term solution to the crisis. Mexican democracy itself will suffer if justice is deferred. The first step is to acknowledge the scope of the issue, and to work with Mexico to apply a plan that tackles all the fronts. Mexico is an
important partner nation for the United States, and the country is only as good as the security of its men, women and children."

(Spanish translation/del libro Cosecha de Mujeres; 2006)
"Recomendaciones
Un tribunal internacional debe investigar a las autoridades del Estado de Chihuahua y del gobierno federal en ese entonces, cuando se cometieron estos ilícitos.
Tal procedimiento internacional debe abarcar la época de la llamada “guerra sucia’ vigente en México, el asesinato cometido contra el periodista Manuel Buendía y las cientos de ejecuciones y desapariciones atribuidas a los cárteles colombianos y mexicanos de las drogas, así como los femicidios.
Hay evidencia circunstancial abrumadora sobre cómo los grupos delictivos se valieron de los femicidios como armas terroristas.
Aunque la pléyade de presidentes, gobernadores y generales del ejército pudieron haber frenado esta situación, no actuaron.
Gozaron del poder y la facultad para intervenir y salvar vidas. Por el contrario, seguramente contribuyeron a encubrir una serie de delitos con un efecto horrible de destrucción en contra de la sociedad.
Aunque cuando las autoridades no asesinaron directamente a persona alguna, pudieron haber evitado esas inenarrables tragedias si no hubieran actuado con negligencia, omisión y corrupción.
Es razonable suponer que habrá gente asesinada si las autoridades suscriben acuerdos con los cárteles de la droga.
En este sentido, tales muertes fueron premeditadas. He ahí el porqué se trata de crímenes contra la humanidad.
Una institución como la Corte Penal Internacional de La Haya pudiera juzgar a las autoridades colombianas quienes facilitaron el comercio de las drogas, así como a los capos del narcotráfico quienes corrompieron de tal manera a la policía y otras autoridades para continuar sin cesar en la matanza contra hombres, mujeres y niños.
No es más que una continuación de las entonces “guerras sucias.
El referido tribunal debería investigar a los responsables de máximo rango y llamarlos a cuentas.
Otra alternativa, para los participantes con facultades legales, dar seguimiento al Centro de Justicia y Responsabilidad y entablar demandas civiles con base en el Estatuto de Agravios a Extranjeros o el Decreto de Protección para las Víctimas de la Tortura, en contra de los infractores de los derechos humanos.
Este centro, con sede en San Francisco, California, contribuyó a sentar un precedente jurídico con un juicio entablado en el 2004 (Chávez contra Carranza) en contra de un ex funcionario de El Salvador, en Modesto, California, implicado en el asesinato cometido en contra del Arzobispo Oscar Romero, en El Salvador, y un caso federal en el 2005, (Doe contra Saravia) en contra de un hombre señalado como responsable de tortura y de llevar a cabo ejecuciones extrajudiciales en esa nación.
La Secretaría de Estado de Estados Unidos podría hacer mucho más para facilitar una solución a largo plazo para esta crisis. En sí, la democracia mexicana sufrirá si la justicia se aplaza.
El primer paso consiste en reconocer este panorama e, igualmente, colaborar con México en ejecutar un plan que ataque todos los frentes.
México es un socio primordial para Estados Unidos, y ese país será benéfico en la medida como se protejan a sus hombres, mujeres y niños.
(From "The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women;" 2006; by Diana Washington Valdez)

Court filings: Mexican drug cartel allegedly wanted to 'blow up' buildings

2011-11-27T11:34:00.000-06:00

Read story by Diana Washington Valdez in the El Paso Times

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_19419313?source=rss_viewed

Monument for women in Juarez, Mexico, image

2011-11-08T22:28:00.001-06:00

Photo of the new memorial in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, constructed by the Mexican government in memory of the girls and women whose bodies were found in the "cotton field" parcel in 2001, was officially dedicated on Nov. 7. A Juarez activist said the project cost a million dollars. The eight murders have not been solved.

Memorial for Juarez femicides, Monumento honra la memoria de las victimas

2011-11-08T10:08:00.002-06:00

(Reprinted with permission)
Memorial honoring women killed in Juárez to be unveiled today
By Marisela Ortega Lozano/El Paso Times/www.elpasotimes.com
11/07/2011
Over a two-day timespan 10 years ago, eight young women were found murdered in a Juárez cotton field. Their memory, along with other women killed in the city, will forever be ingrained in the minds of Juárez's citizens.
Today at 9 a.m., Mexi

can officials will unveil a memorial remembering all women killed in Juárez. The ceremony takes place at a cotton field in Juárez, at the intersection of Paseo de la Victoria and Ejército Nacional, where eight young women's bodies were found on Nov. 6 and 7, 2001.
Felipe de Jesús Zamora Castro, Deputy Secretary of the Mexican Department of the Interior's Legal Affairs, Mexican government and human rights officials are scheduled to attend the event.
Mexican congresswoman Adriana Terrazas, who is secretary for the Femicides Commission, said the memorial should be seen as a sign that violence against women shouldn't be allowed either in Juárez or Mexico.
"It should be like a quiet scream of 'enough is enough,'" Terrazas said in a statement.
The memorial complies with a December 2010 sentence issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States. That court ruled the Mexican government did not thoroughly investigate the 2001 cotton field murder cases and instructed the government to reinvestigate them and follow other directives.
"We are carrying out a public act of accountability with the unveiling" of the memorial, according to the National Committee to Prevent and Eliminate Violence Against Women in Mexico.
In connection with those murders, two maquiladora bus drivers, Victor Javier García Uribe and Gustavo González Meza, were detained and formally charged of sexually assaulting and murdering all eight victims, according to a summary written by the Mexican Committee of Defense and Protection of Human Rights.
On July 14, 2005, García Uribe was released because of a lack of proof to bring any charges against him.
González Meza died on Feb. 8, 2003, while in custody after complications from surgery, state authorities said.
###

Monumento en Memoria de las Mujeres Víctimas de Homicidio en Juárez
Marisela Ortega Lozano SomosFrontera/www.elpasotimes.com/www.somosfrontera.com
11/06/2011
CIUDAD JUÁREZ -- A 10 años del hallazgo de ocho jóvenes mujeres violadas y asesinadas en Juárez, finalmente se descubrirá el Monumento en Memoria de las Mujeres Víctimas de Homicidio por Razones de Género, informaron las autoridades federales y estatales en México.
Será este lunes 7 de noviembre, a las 9 de la mañana, cuando autoridades de los tres niveles de gobierno inauguren la efigie, justo en el sitio donde las ocho víctimas fueron abandonadas ya sin vida, en el campo algodonero ubicado entre las avenidas Paseo de la Victoria y Ejército Nacional, frente a la sede de la Asociación de Maquiladoras de Ciudad Juárez.
Se trata de un acto público de reconocimiento de responsabilidad internacional, a partir de la emisión de la sentencia dictada por la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, en contra del estado mexicano, el 10 de diciembre del 2009 , expresó un vocero de la Secretaría de Gobernación, en un comunicado de prensa.
El 6 y 7 de noviembre del 2001, los restos de ocho jóvenes desaparecidas y asesinadas fueron descubiertos en ese predio y, según los informes preliminares de los peritos forenses, las víctimas fueron torturadas, algunas de ellas estaban atadas de manos y otras habían sido calcinadas.
Con relación a estos ocho homicidios, las autoridades judiciales detuvieron a los choferes Víctor Javier García Uribe El Cerillo , de 29 años, y Gustavo González Meza La Foca , de 28, a quienes se les fincó responsabilidad por el secuestro y ataque en contra de las víctimas, según la policía estatal, en aquel entonces.
Muñoz murió en la prisión estatal de Chihuahua, en febrero del 2003, supuestamente a causa de complicaciones quirúrgicas por una hernia, mientras que García Uribe recuperó su libertad en el 2007, al no comprobársele su supuesta responsabilidad en los asesinatos.
Ambos fueron asesorados por los abogados César Escobedo y Sergio Almaraz Mora, quienes sostuvieron que sus dos clientes fueron torturados para confesarse culpables de esos ilícitos.
César Escobedo, de 29 años, pereció acribillado a tiros la noche del 5 de febrero del 2002, en Juárez, a manos de agentes de la Policía Judicial del Estado, quienes supuestamente lo confundieron con un fugitivo de la justicia de Chihuahua, apodado El Venado .
Almaraz Mora pereció ejecutado en Juárez, en el 2009.
En la sentencia dictada el 10 de diciembre del 2009, la Corte aludió al caso de desaparición y ulterior muerte de las jóvenes Claudia Ivette González, Esmeralda Herrera Monreal y Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez, cuyos cuerpos fueron encontrados en un campo algodonero de Ciudad Juárez el día 6 de noviembre de 2001.
La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos argumentó la responsabilidad internacional del Estado mexicano por la falta de medidas de protección a las víctimas; la falta de prevención de estos crímenes, pese al conocimiento de la existencia de un patrón de violencia de género en la zona; la falta de respuesta de las autoridades frente a la desaparición; la falta de debida diligencia en la investigación de los asesinatos; y la denegación de justicia y la falta de reparación adecuada, según el dictamen de la CIDH.
En el acto conmemorativo de este lunes estará presente Felipe de Jesús Zamora Castro, Sub Secretario de Adjuntos Jurídicos y Derechos Humanos de la Secretaría de Gobernación, así como Dilcya Samantha García Espinoza de los Monteros, Comisionada Nacional para la Prevenir y Erradicar la Violencia contra las Mujeres.
(Con información de la reportera de El Paso Times, Diana Washington Valdez.)
###

Turin, Italy is magic capital of the world?

2011-11-01T22:33:00.000-06:00

Locals say Turin,Italy has negative/positive energy spots, and straddles black and white magic triangles ...
See story and photo gallery at
www.elpasotimes.com/ci_19233378?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.com

Wikileaks: Driving dangerously in Juarez, Mexico

2011-11-01T22:25:00.000-06:00

U.S. cable advises against driving or taking the bus in Juarez, Mexico. See more at
http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/wikileaks/

BBC: Basque Group ETA Says Armed Campaign is Over

2011-10-20T15:57:00.001-05:00

[Blog staff: Give Peace a Chance ...]

Basque Group ETA Says Armed Campaign is Over
By the BBC/Oct. 20, 2011

The Basque separatist group Eta says it has called a "definitive cessation" to its campaign of bombings and shootings.
In a statement provided to the BBC, Eta called on the Spanish and French governments to respond with "a process of direct dialogue".
The declaration, if followed through, would bring an end to Eta's campaign of violence, which has lasted more than 40 years and killed more than 800 people.
Spain's PM said the move was "a victory for democracy, law and reason".

See rest of the story at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15393014

Expert says serial killer may have cheated on IQ test

2011-10-14T10:14:00.000-05:00

See the entire story and video in the El Paso Times at
www.elpasotimes.com/ci_19104634?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.com
Copyright (C) 2011, El Paso Times
By Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times (10/14/2011)

The fate of death row inmate David Leonard Wood could hinge on the testimony of forensic psychologist Thomas Allen, who testified Thursday that Wood is not mentally retarded.
Allen, who'd been on the stand for nearly 12 hours, said he based his finding on tests he administered to Wood and on his review of Wood's voluminous case file.
He testified that Wood exhibits "anti-social personality disorder" and that his full-scale IQ is 75. On parts of a recent battery of tests, Wood scored 80 on verbal comprehension and 86 on perceptual reasoning.
"The bottom line É 75 is the bottom line," Allen testified.
The score is significant because it puts Wood out of the 70 IQ range for mental retardation for purposes of his post-conviction appeal.
Allen said certain tests that Wood was given indicate Wood may have deliberately "dumbed down" his answers to help his case.....
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_19104634?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.com

Report from Italy about violence in Juarez, Mexico

2011-10-08T11:32:00.002-05:00

http://www.corriere.it/esteri/speciali/2010/i-reportage-di-ettore-mo/notizie/ciudad-juarez_480905ee-c7de-11e0-9dd1-bf930586114f.shtml

Drug corruption at the U.S. border

2011-09-22T10:06:00.000-05:00

Reprinted with permission from the El Paso Times
(Kelly McKenzie, Web Master)

Whistle-blowers allege corruption, cartel ties
By Diana Washington Valdez/El Paso Times

Two former law enforcement officers allege that they cannot get anyone to investigate allegations that the Mexican drug cartels have corrupted U.S. law officers and politicians in the El Paso border region.
Greg Gonzales, a retired Doña Ana County sheriff's deputy, and Wesley Dutton, a rancher and former New Mexico state livestock investigator, said that instead of arrests and prosecutions of suspects, their whistle-blowing activities have resulted only in threats and retaliation against themselves.
"I lost my job for a security company at the federal courthouse in Las Cruces because I would not keep my mouth shut, and someone threatened me by holding a knife to my throat," Gonzales said.
Dutton, a rancher in Southern New Mexico, said an election official stopped by his ranch to ask him what was it going to take for him to retract his allegations concerning the official.
Confidential sources
Both men were confidential sources for the FBI in El Paso and assisted with investigations over an 18-month period.
Gonzales and Dutton allege that the FBI dropped them after "big names" on the U.S. side of the border began to surface in the drug investigations.
FBI Special Agent Michael Martinez said that the FBI cannot comment on its former or current relationships with confidential sources.
Dutton said an FBI official who used to be in El Paso sent a memo to other law enforcement agencies in the area to dissuade them from talking to him and Gonzales or
having anything to do with them.
Gonzales and Dutton said both or either one of them helped with federal investigations that were successful, including the arrest of Special FBI Agent John Shipley. Shipley was convicted of weapons-related charges after a weapon he sold someone turned up in Chihuahua state at a scene where a firefight took place between Mexican soldiers and drug traffickers.
However, they said, they are concerned that other serious allegations have not found their way to court.
Hit on agent
"One of the street gangs that works for the Juárez cartel put a hit out on FBI Special Agent Samantha Mikeska, and I told the FBI as soon as I heard about it," Dutton said. "We also had information on campaign fundraisers and parties in La Union that the cartel held for officials from New Mexico and El Paso. A lot of important people were at those parties, such as bankers, judges, and law enforcement officers."
Mikeska is a high-profile agent whose investigations of the Barrio Azteca gang led to prosecutions of gang leaders. The gang, which has members in West Texas and New Mexico, is linked to the Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel.
Gonzales said a U.S. law enforcement officer was suspected of selling to a street gang with Juárez drug cartel ties a list of U.S. Marshals that included their telephone numbers.
"With their number, the gang was able to 'clone' the agents' cell phones and intercept their calls," Gonzales said. "That way, they would know when one of the agents was trying to serve an arrest warrant against one of their members."
Dutton and Gonzales said small aircraft regularly drop drug loads on ranches or other properties along the U.S.-Mexico border, and that some U.S. law officers escort the loads to the next stop.
The two whistle-blowers said that drug cartels have managed to obtain computer access codes to U.S. surveillance systems that let them see where and when Border Patrol agents are monitoring the border.
They also alleged that drug cartels have given big donations to politicians, which are unreported, to influence appointments of key law enforcement officers.
Some of these allegations were contained in a letter that Dutton provided to Gov. Rick Perry, who is seeking the Republican Party's nomination for president in the 2012 election.
"Our office received the letter and referred it to the appropriate agency, which was the Department of Public Safety," Josh Havens, a spokesman for the Texas governor's office, said last Friday.
Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety and a former FBI agent from El Paso, said last Friday that he was interested in talking to Dutton. Then, about a half-hour later, McCraw said that Dutton had no credibility.
'Nothing there'
"We looked into it and there was nothing there," McCraw said.
Dutton said in response, "How can they say there was nothing when they didn't even look at what I have?"
Dutton said he has videos, telephone records, and other documents gathered over the 18 months he worked with the FBI.
"The DPS never asked to see any of it," Dutton said.
During his work with the FBI, Dutton said the FBI asked him to accept drug shipments from Mexico through his ranching company.
"The drugs were concealed in horse saddles, and we started getting a lot of them," Dutton said. "But the FBI kept putting me off when I asked for the money to pay the cartels for the drugs. I had to use my own funds. The FBI still owes me thousands of dollars for these out-of-pocket expenses.
"I asked the FBI for help when I started getting threats, but the only thing that happened is that everyone starting running for cover to protect their careers," Dutton said. "One of the FBI agents said politics got in the way, and that they had to close out the investigation and end their relationship with me."
As a state livestock investigator, Dutton made arrests like any other law enforcement officer, collaborated with sheriffs' offices, seized drugs and investigated thefts. He also developed intelligence that drug cartels used cross-border cattle shipments to transport drugs across the border at Santa Teresa.
Zetas cartel

Dutton said other informants told him that the Zetas drug cartel has a high-level member in Las Cruces whose wife holds a non-law enforcement job in the "DA's office," referring to the Doña Ana County District Attorney's Office.
The whistle-blowers also alleged that the corruption they've encountered includes a prominent doctor in El Paso who provides prescriptions for drugs to people who need to pass lie-detector tests.
"The FBI was provided with all this information, and I guess that's why they're now saying that we're crazy," Dutton said.
Dutton and Gonzales said their frustration over the lack of investigations has compelled them to turn to U.S. lawmakers and to Judicial Watch for help.
Judicial Watch is a conservative, nonpartisan educational foundation in Washington, D.C., which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.
The organization publishes a list each year of the "Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" of both major political parties.
Chris Farrell, Judicial Watch research director, confirmed that Dutton has been in contact with his office.
"These are very serious allegations that should be investigated by law enforcement," Farrell said. "There are too many details and specifics to just ignore them. The threats against them (Dutton and Gonzales) also should be investigated."
###

Photos of US drug corruption money paid by Mexican cartel

2011-09-19T10:04:00.008-05:00

Exclusive photographs compiled by Kelly McKenzie
Copyright (C) 2011, Kelly McKenzie and WLM

The vehicle of corruption

Former New Mexico law enforcement officer alleges that a Mexican drug cartel dropped off money for him to distribute to corrupt U.S. police officers in the West Texas and Southern New Mexico region. The first photo shows the money he received. The subsequent photos shows how the payoffs or bribes were divided and ready for pickup. Federal law investigators were in a different room when the corrupt law officers came by to pick up their payoffs. The source alleges that the law enforcement officers who picked up the money were not arrested despite the alleged evidence. The source said he worked with the FBI and other agencies for nearly two years and had to document all the transactions. He stamp-dated the photographs.

State Department gives status of Merida Initiative

2011-09-17T10:45:00.000-05:00

Compiled by Kelly McKenzie/WLM

This is a transcript of a press interview with a U.S. State Department spokesperson in Washington, D.C., regarding the status of the Merida Initiative.
Spokespersons in that department speak only on background. This is the interview on Merida that U.S. officials released this week:
QUESTION: What is the State Department reaction to members of Congress who say the Merida Initiative is a failure?
ANSWER: We believe the Initiative is already having a positive impact. Through its bold efforts, with U.S. support, the Mexican government has successfully dismantled drug smuggling routes, seized major amounts of illicit drugs, and jailed drug kingpins. Building institutional capacity for the rule of law is crucial to long-term success. The Merida Initiative is a long-term initiative to support Mexican efforts in this regard.
A variety of U.S. federal agencies—including the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Justice—are working with the Mexican government to implement Merida projects. We have seen an increase in bilateral law enforcement cooperation since the Merida Initiative began.
As President Obama has clearly stated: “We share with Mexico responsibility for meeting this challenge and we are committed to continuing our unprecedented cooperation in confronting these criminal organizations.”
Q: What are the accomplishments of the initiative to date?
A: As of Sept. 1, more than $504 million in equipment, training, and capacity-building has been delivered. With additional deliveries in 2011, we will bring this total to almost $900 million.
Moreover, our partnership with Mexico under the Merida Initiative has helped to strengthen and enhance our cooperation with Mexico in terms of our overall bilateral agenda. Since the partnership was formalized in 2008, more than $1.6 billion has been appropriated for the Merida Initiative (FY08-11). We have put into place an effective bilateral implementation structure that is now accelerating the implementation of our activities.
Since the inception of the Merida Initiative, working together, the United States and Mexico have:
•Trained more than 6,800 federal police officers, 4,300 prosecutors and justice sector personnel, and 2,000 corrections and penitentiary staff;
•Strengthened ties to investigate cross-border financial flows and combat money laundering;
•Transferred 14 helicopters to Mexican security forces and police to increase their mobility in their operations;
•Trained more than 23,000 justice sector personnel on their new roles in the oral, adversarial system, including litigation, negotiation, witness preparation, case development, and management.
•Provided technical assistance to victims’ services and alternative justice centers in Chihuahua and Morelos, and trained over 3,500 government officials and members of civil society to attend to victims of trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault.
•Increased information sharing on transnational drug trafficking organizations, which has undergirded successful efforts to remove more than 29 drug cartel bosses;
•Expanded the deployment of non-intrusive inspection devices, including canine teams, at our common border;
•Expanded collaboration to trace weapons found in Mexico by serial number to determine whether they come from the U.S. “e-Trace”;
•Continued the high level (cooperation on) extraditions and fugitive apprehensions.
•Purchased and trained more than 114 canines for the Federal Police (SSP), Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and Customs Service (SAT) -- all of which are developing canine academies with Merida funding and technical assistance.
•Increased by 70 percent the number of cases now referred to as pre-trial case resolution alternatives in the states where the judicial reforms are being implemented. This has resulted in increased proportions of indictments of more serious crimes.
Q: Is a counterinsurgency strategy, as suggested by members of Congress, right to combat the drug cartels in Mexico?
A: We fully support Mexico’s efforts to combat organized crime, reduce violence, and enforce the rule of law. We share responsibility for these challenges and Mexico's efforts and interests in this regard can and do coincide with our own. We are committed to working with Mexico on both sides of the border in order to counter transnational criminal organizations.
Mexican authorities assert control throughout Mexico, in all Mexican states. Although organized crime tries to act with impunity, the Mexican government is using its resources to ensure that state authority will prevail and criminals will be punished, and we are supporting them.
U.S. support to Mexico through the Merida Initiative is designed to support the efforts of Mexican authorities, especially the civilian law enforcement agencies.
###

Wikileaks: Flu pandemic could close the border

2011-09-13T14:18:00.000-05:00

See new border Wikileaks blog featured in the El Paso Times
http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/wikileaks/

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-11T15:20:00.000-05:00

Conference on 9/11 and the Border in Mexico City

2011-09-09T16:47:00.000-05:00

CEDAN Presenta (CEDAN Presents)
SEGURIDAD FRONTERIZA (Border Security):
“Hacia una visión binacional de la seguridad fronteriza
México-Estados Unidos” (Developing a Binational Vision for the U.S.-Mexico Border Security)
Viernes 9 de septiembre de 2011 (Friday, Sept. 9, 2011)
Tecnológico de Monterrey-Campus Ciudad de México (Mexico City)
Panel 1: "Border Security: The view from the U.S."
Diana Washington Valdez, Journalist, El Paso Times
Marshall Fritz, Director of Immigration Policy, Center for American Progress
Richard Neu, Director of the Mexico Office, RAND Corporation
Moderator: Col. Eric Rojo, Security Program Coordinator, CEDAN
Panel 2 "Border Security: The view from Mexico"
Jorge Chabat, Professor, Center for Economic Research and Teaching
Gustavo Mohar, General Secretary, Center of Research for National Security
Luis Astorga, Professor, UNAM
Jose Carreño, Visitng Fellow, CEDAN
Moderator: Isidro Morales, Editorial Director, Latin American Policy
Panel 3 "Security in North America: an integral vision"
Enrique Rojo, Chief of Staff, Undersecretary for North America, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Greg Anderson, Professor, University of Alberta
John Feeley, Charge d'Affaires, U.S. Embassy in Mexico.
Ana María Salazar, Director, Grupo Salazar
Moderator: Isabel Studer, Director, CEDAN
(CEDAN Centro de Diálogo y Análisis sobre América del Norte)

News in Spanish in new website of the El Paso Times

2011-09-05T17:17:00.000-05:00

Hay que leer
www.somosfrontera.com
It's the new Spanish-language site for news

Paramilitaries in Mexico fight drug cartels

2011-09-02T11:18:00.001-05:00

Copyright(C)2011 by WLM
Reprinted with permission by Milan Magazine (Italia)

Interview with Diana Washington Valdez, journalist, author and political science teacher.
8/28/2011

Milan: Can you tell us about the reports that the CIA or U.S. military are involved in the drug cartel wars in Mexico? What role does either of them play?
Washington Valdez: The U.S. military lends a support role with the permission of the Mexican government. The Merida Initiative provides training and equipment for personnel in Mexico, and our military, directly or through advisors, assists the Mexican forces in developing strategies for use against the drug cartels. The CIA has had a presence in Mexico for decades, and that should come as no surprise to anyone. What changes from time to time is its mission there. The CIA has extensive experience in all kinds of warfare and psychological operations, and its mission in Afghanistan is a prime example of how small specialized units led by CIA can execute effective missions.
Milan: You pointed out that in your 2005 book on the Juarez women's femicides "Cosecha de Mujeres" (The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women; 2006), you wrote that Mexican special forces soldiers were deployed to infiltrate and battle the drug cartels. You also noted that a special team led by former U.S. Special Forces was involved in paramilitary operations against the Arellano Felix (Tijuana) drug cartel, and that in fact that this team was responsible for dismantling the Tijuana cartel.
Washington Valdez: The team leader "Terry Sheron" led "Operation Kickback" in paramilitary fashion. The team collected enormous data about the Tijuana cartel operations and its operatives, and provided the intelligence to U.S. and Mexican authorities. The team lost several men, and the cartel leaders were aware of this operation and tried to exterminate the team. Sheron would not say who hired the team, but back then Sheron was also aware of the corruption linked to the Juarez drug cartel. This was before the current drug cartel wars. He and others knew that the corruption reached the highest levels of the Mexican government. His team's work is proof that a small, specialized team that is incorruptible can accomplish more than a large contingent of soldiers without critical information and the proper technology and leadership. Some day the full story of this team will come out so that the team can receive proper credit. I asked Sheron if he was interested in working to bring down the Juarez cartel. He said then that it was not up to him.
Milan: What about the U.S. military's role now?
Washington Valdez: I don't have a lot of details except what sources along the U.S.-Mexico border have said. One of them, Robert Plumlee, a documented former CIA operative, has accompanied U.S. soldiers along the border at New Mexico-Mexico that worked with Mexican soldiers, providing intelligence on cartel activities, to information about arms-smuggling. Others have reported that U.S. helicopters (painted over) fly out of facilities at Fort Bliss, Texas, and into Mexico, probably carrying equipment and advisors.
Milan: What about the politics?
Washington Valdez: There are political sensitivies involved, but the U.S. community seems to have no problem with military units operating in Afghanistan, and there would probably be more support in Mexico for this kind of collaboration if the Mexican and U.S. governments were more open about it. The Mexican army does not have real-world experience in combat, even for its own national defense. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox turned down a request from former U.S. President George W. Bush to participate in the war in Iraq, which would have provided some Mexican army officers and NCO's valuable experience that they in turn could be using now to battle the cartels. El Salvador sent some of its soldiers in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is apart from the politics of whether the U.S. government should have entered that war at all. From a practical standpoint, it is in the interest of the U.S. government, probably under the auspices of the U.S. Northern Command, for the Mexican army to have such experience and to be properly equipped, and to be ready at all times for any contingency involving its homeland security and the security of the North American continent. The U.S. government needs that kind of partner in Canada and Mexico. What you have now is at least one drug cartel that is highly militarized and seems to have no trouble obtaining weapons and that is spreading its influence and brutal violence throughtout Mexico. It has operatives in the United States and a presence in other countries. What remains a mystery, at least to some of us, is who or what is behind this cartel. Is it a glorified gang or is it someone's private army? Are corrupt government officials behind it? Another country? The CIA probably knows or should know.
Milan: Do you agree with these tactics or strategies against the drug cartels?
Washington Valdez: I cannot venture an opinion on how Mexico and the U.S. government should approach the problem. What I can say is that both had allowed the issue to grow to such an extent that it is not easy now to end it or bring it down to a manageable level without inflicting pain on the Mexican society. In a sense, it's too late to turn back.
Milan: Is it true that you were in the U.S. military?
Washington Valdez: Yes, I served my country honorably in the Army and National Guard for 21 years.
Milan: This has been an eye-opening interview. I hope we can stay in touch whenever new developments occur. Good luck on your next book.
Washington Valdez: Thank you.
(Copyright (C) 2011 by WLM)

Experts: Mexican cartels are militarizing for the war

2011-08-07T11:45:00.000-05:00

Report: Mexican drug cartels adopting military tactics
(ATF investigates alleged arms-smuggling by Zetas in El Paso, Texas border area)
by Diana Washington Valdez \ El Paso Times
08/07/2011
Mexican drug cartels are using military weapons and tactics while also recruiting Texas teenagers to carry out their operations, which are evolving into full-blown criminal enterprises, experts said.

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven C. McCraw said last week in a report given to Congress that the cartels "incorporate reconnaissance networks, techniques and capabilities normally associated with military organizations, such as communications intercepts, interrogations, trend analysis, secure communications, coordinated military-style tactical operations, GPS, thermal imagery and military armaments, including fully automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades."
See rest of story at http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_18632455

Forensic sculptor Frank Bender of Philadelphia has passed away

2011-08-06T15:15:00.001-05:00

(Rest in peace Frank, in the Lord's arms -- staff)
Notice
Services to be held on Monday, August 8 at 1:00 P.M. sharp at Washington Crossing National Cemetery, 830 Highland Road, Newtown, PA. The service will be only 30 min. long, ending promptly at 1:30pm. (Please note there was a mistake in the Philly news and the funeral is NOT Tues. the 9th!)
After the services a gathering will be held at:
Washington Crossing Inn
1295 General Washington Memorial Blvd.
Washington Crossing, PA 18977
877.882.1776
www.washingtoncrossinginn.com

Alleged drug lord claims U.S. agents allowed Sinaloa cartel to traffic drugs

2011-08-04T09:45:00.001-05:00

Alleged Mexican drug lord made bombshell claims in U.S. court in Chicago

See story in today's El Paso Times regarding a case pending in a U.S. federal court

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_18608410?source=most_viewed

In Spanish

http://www.elpasotimes.com/spanish/ci_18609507

CPJ: Mexican journalist beheaded

2011-07-27T00:06:00.000-05:00

Center for the Protection of Journalists
Sara Rafsky, CPJ research associate
Journalist (Yolanda Ordaz)found decapitated in Mexico
New York, July 26, 2011-The decapitated head and body of veteran reporter Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz was found early this morning, according to officials in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The journalist was abducted on Sunday by armed men as she left her house. Ordaz covered the police beat for the main Veracruz city newspaper, Notiver, but her body was found near the building of the newspaper Imagen. Reporters in Veracruz told CPJ that the gruesome killing and the placement of the body appeared to be an ominous message meant for the press. In a press conference, the state prosecutor, Reynaldo Escobar Pérez, denied that Ordaz’s murder was linked to her work, and said the evidence seemed to indicate that her killers were members of organized crime. However, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, Magda Zayas, told CPJ that the journalist’s work was one of the lines of investigation they are following. A note found with the body seems to connect Ordaz’s murder to the killing of the widely known columnist Miguel Angel López Velasco, his wife, and son, a photographer with the newspaper, on June 20, according to Zayas. She said the note was signed “Carranza,” and said: “Friends can also betray you.” The Associated Press reported that Veracruz state investigators have identified former traffic police officer Juan Carlos Carranza Saavedra as the main suspect in the López murder. Mexico's Human Rights Commission said it would open its own investigation into Ordaz's killing, according to the AP. Ordaz is the fourth journalist from Veracruz to be killed this year. In addition to López and his son, the body of Noel López Olguín, a columnist with the newspaper La Verdad de Jáltipan who went missing in March, was found buried in a clandestine grave on May 31. “Yolanda Ordaz’s murder is part of a troubling lethal trend that has made Veracruz an extremely dangerous place to be a journalist,” said Carlos Lauría, CPJ’s senior program coordinator for the Americas. “We urge Mexican authorities to conduct a thorough investigation, establish the motives of the crime, and put an end to impunity in journalists’ slaying by bringing Ordaz’s killers to justice.” Reporters in Veracruz city told CPJ that Ordaz had worked for as long as three decades covering the police and was very close to López and his family. Drug-related violence now makes Mexico one of the world's most dangerous countries for the press, according to CPJ research. Fifteen journalists, including Ordaz, have been killed since 2010, at least four in direct reprisal for their work. CPJ is investigating whether the other eleven deaths were related to the journalists' work. According to CPJ's 2011 Impunity Index, Mexico's rating worsened for the third consecutive year, with 13 cases of journalists' murdered unsolved, putting it at eighth on the list. The index identifies countries worldwide where journalists are murdered regularly and governments are unable or unwilling to solve the crimes. (CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, please visit www.cpj.org).______________________________

El Paso Times: Mexican police rescue 20 female minors in Juarez sweep focusing on sex trafficking

2011-07-25T12:48:00.000-05:00

(One girl found in same hotel where a murdered woman was found July 15)

Officials: 20 girls rescued during Juárez human trafficking sweep
By Marisela Ortega and Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
Posted: 07/25/2011 11:12:37 AM MDT
Chihuahua state officials are investigating allegations of sexual exploitation and human trafficking in Juárez after a weekend sweep targeting Downtown businesses netted the detention of 1,030 men and women.
The federal Public Safety Ministry announced that the July 22-23 operation is part of Mexico's National Amber Alert Program, modeled after the U.S. program, in an effort to find young women who are reported missing.
"As a result of these actions, 20 female minors were rescued," officials said in a news release. "In addition, officers detained 500 men and 530 women on suspicion of possible links to human trafficking and sexual exploitation."
(Rest of story at http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_18544746 )

Amy Winehouse video tribute on HuffingtonPost

2011-07-23T15:30:00.000-05:00

Huffington Post

"Rehab" & others

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/23/amy-winehouse-dead-singer_n_907753.html#s314557&title=Rehab

Rest in peace Amy Winehouse

Wikileaks: Ex-Juarez bishop worked to sway Mexican presidential election

2011-07-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

Wikileaks-released document shows Ex-Juárez bishop worked to sway Mexican election
U.S. has embassy to the Vatican
By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
07/23/2011
Former Juárez Catholic Bishop Juan Sandoval Iñiguez asked the United States government to help prevent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from becoming president of Mexico, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
Sandoval, today a cardinal in Guadalajara and a former contender for the papacy, discussed Obrador during a 2006 meeting with U.S. diplomats in Rome.
"In separate meetings, two influential Latin American cardinals told Ambassador (Francis) Rooney of their concerns for the continent and urged USG (U.S. government) support for efforts to promote free trade and understanding of market economies to upper and lower classes in the region," the cable said, referring to Sandoval and Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes.
Sandoval raised concerns about the increasing presence of leftist leaders in Latin America, including Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Christina Kirchner, Michelle Bachelet and possibly Lopez Obrador, and called it "a dangerous trend," according to the April 6, 2006 cable from the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.
"Sandoval said that under Lopez Obrador's governance, crime and violence had risen in Mexico City. (He also discussed his conviction that his predecessor had been killed by the Mexican government in 1994.)," the cable said.
(See rest of story in today's El Paso Times at http://www.elpasotimes.com/juarez/ci_18530442)

Juarez teens vanish in downtown; officials implicate Mexican gang

2011-07-20T07:55:00.004-05:00

Reprinted from the El Paso Times

Family searches for Juárez teen missing since last week
By Diana Washington Valdez/El Paso Times
07/20/2011

Relatives of Juárez resident Nancy I. Navarro Muñoz, 18, said they have become desperate in their search for the teenager who has been missing July 13.
Her parents told authorities they last saw Navarro when she left the house to apply for a job at the Modernas Telas fabric store in downtown Juárez. She was looking for work because she had lost her job at one of the Lear maquiladora plants and has a baby to support.
This week, the teenager's relatives and friends conducted a protest in front of the Chihuahua state attorney general's office, complaining that investigators are not doing enough to find Navarro.
Lucy Muñoz, Navarro's mother, said her daughter was last seen at a bus stop downtown around 2 p.m. on July 13.
According to XEPM-TV (Channel 99/Televisa) in Juárez, a string of young women with similar profiles as Navarro have turned up missing in recent months.
More than half a dozen of them attended the private Ignacio Allende preparatory school, which is in front of the Benito Juárez monument in downtown Juárez. The missing teenagers were known to use Facebook and vanished in the same part of the city, XEPM reported.
FBI and Mexican federal attorney general officials previously said that Juárez Azteca gang members allegedly were implicated in the deaths and disappearances of young women. Officials said the gang is part of "La Linea," a network of corrupt police and business operators that control drug-smuggling in downtown Juárez.
Juárez city officials said Tuesday that a special police unit called Grupo Jaguares (Jaguars) was sent to patrol areas around schools to keep criminals away and prevent campus property thefts.
Non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International and Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa have alerted to a new wave of violence aimed at young women in Juárez.
"On a number of occasions, the authorities have failed to respond rapidly to reports of women and young girls going missing," Amnesty International said in a statement after Adriana Sarmiento, 15, was reported missing in 2008.
Chihuahua state officials said 122 girls and women have been killed in Juárez this year, and that most of the deaths were related to organized crime. Mexican officials said 58 girls and women who were reported missing at the end of 2010 had not been found.
Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.
(-30-)
See story in Spanish by Juarez reporter Felix Gonzalez at http://www.nortedigital.mx/noticias/local/30138
[News media in Ciudad Juarez that published recent articles on the topic include Norte de Ciudad Juarez print newspaper and online at www.nortedigital.com.mx and XEPM-TV/Televisa.]

Zetas smuggling weapons in El Paso and Juarez border region

2011-07-13T09:21:00.000-05:00

Zetas may be smuggling weapons
By Diana Washington Valdez\El Paso Times
07/13/2011
The brutally violent Zetas drug organization may be smuggling military-grade weapons through El Paso and Columbus, N.M., to feed its ongoing battles against other cartels and to possibly disrupt the 2012 elections in Mexico.
Phil Jordan, a former director of the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center and a former CIA operative, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons through the El Paso area.
(See rest of story at http://www.elpasotimes.com/communities/ci_18465182?source=most_viewed)

FBI unravels drug smuggling scheme at the Juarez-El Paso border

2011-07-07T11:00:00.000-05:00

Copyright (C) 2011, WLM

By Kelly McKenzie
07072011/WLM News

EL PASO, TEXAS - The FBI in El Paso, Texas, unraveled a drug smuggling scheme with several suspects that used unwitting border commuters to transport marijuana across the border, according to court documents filed in U.S. federal court.
Jesus Chavez, one of the suspects charged in the scheme, is scheduled to have a detention hearing today in El Paso.
According the documents, including a FBI criminal complaint, the scheme included people operating on both sides of the border.
The suspects used lookouts to chose targets (drivers and their vehicles) at the Stanton Street international bridge express lane.
For the scheme, the suspects wrote down the driver's vehicle identification number that then was given to a Texas locksmith to produce duplicate keys for the targeted vehicle.
The suspects used the keys to enter a vehicle, place drugs in it and relock it.
The drivers, totally unaware of what was happening, drove their vehicle with the drugs across the border to El Paso for work or other business.
The FBI said the suspects would unlock the vehicle wherever it was parked on the U.S. side to remove the drugs.
However, border inspections sometimes interdicted the drugs, and authorities would charge the unsuspecting vehicle owners.
The most recent case related to the scheme involved the arrest of Ana Isela Martinez, a teacher for a private school in El Paso, Texas, after Mexican soldiers conducting checks at the bridge on the Juarez side intercepted a marijuana load in her vehicle before she crossed over to El Paso.
Martinez, 35, is in jail in Juarez.
The FBI complaint said the suspects selected Martinez because she was punctual and predictable on when she crossed and where and for how long she parked her vehicle.
Court records said other victims of the scheme included Dr. Justus Lawrence Opot and Marisol Perez, health professionals who worked together. They discovered a bag with marijuana in their vehicle before crossing the border and reported it to Mexican authorities, who arrested them anyway. Eventually, they were cleared and released.
Phil Jordan, a former DEA official in El Paso, said it is not unusual for traffickers to plant drugs on people for the purpose of retaliation or to use innocent border-crossers to transport drugs across the border.
"They were doing it to tourists in Nogales, Arizona," Jordan said.
Auto thieves are known to use duplicate sets of keys they manage to obtain to steal vehicles and transport them across the border or to other U.S. cities.
###

Reporter from Juarez, Mexico, is granted asylum in Spain

2011-07-06T10:08:00.001-05:00

Reporter from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico is granted asylum in Spain

By Kelly McKenzie
07062011/WLM News

JUAREZ, MEXICO - The government of Spain has granted political asylum to former Juarez reporter Rosa Isela Perez.
Perez, a respected and award-winning journalist, was forced to flee the border city after receiving numerous threats against her and her family.
She used to work for the newspaper El Norte de Ciudad Juarez.
Perez said the threats began after her newspaper published her stories about the femicides (women's murders) in Juarez.
The threats took on an ominous turn after she testified in the "campo algodonero" case (cotton field case) of 2001 for an international tribunal in 2009.
The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and the Inter-American Court had agreed to review the complaints of three families whose daughters' bodies were found at the site on Ejercito Nacional and Paseo de la Victoria.
A total of eight young women's bodies were found there. None of the deaths were solved and the initial investigation was filled with serious errors. Some of the bodies were misidentified, and the two bus drivers that Chihuahua state officials had accused of killing the women turned out to be innocent; one of them died in jail.
The Inter-American Court for Human Rights ruled against Mexico in the case in 2010, and directed the government to reopen the investigation, something which has not happened.
###

2011-07-02T12:13:00.000-05:00

Report: US weapons enrich cartels' power

By Diana Washington Valdez \ El Paso Times
07/01/2011

Mexican drug cartels are having no trouble stocking up on military-grade weapons trafficked illegally from the United States to continue waging their bloody turf battles, according to a recent congressional report titled "Outgunned."
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating arms trafficking in the wake of revelations that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' "Fast and Furious" operation resulted in the slaying of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.
See rest of the story at
http://www.elpasotimes.com/juarez/ci_18385482?source=pkg

Graffiti in Mexico threatens DEA agents

2011-07-02T12:09:00.000-05:00

DEA agents, Chihuahua governor threatened via graffiti in Juárez and Chihuahua City

By Diana Washington Valdez/El Paso Times
07/02/2011

Narco graffiti - commonly used to spread messages by drug traffickers -- found Friday in Chihuahua City threatens the lives of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents working in Mexico.
The graffiti has been removed, but who wrote it is not known, Mexican authorities said.
The graffiti said that "they" knew who the DEA agents are and where they are located. It said in Spanish "les vamos a mochar la cabeza," or "we're going to chop off your heads."
The day before, five "narco mantas" (banners) left throughout Juárez threatened Chihuahua Gov. Cesar Duarte.
See the rest of the story at
http://www.elpasotimes.com/juarez/ci_18392856

Univision: Al Punto with Jorge Ramos interviews Diana Washington Valdez

2011-06-26T23:01:00.001-05:00

Diana Washington Valdez with "Al Punto" by Jorge Ramos
http://noticias.univision.com/al-punto/videos/video/2011-06-26/temas-noticiosos-de-la-semana

U.S. trial showed inner workings of Barrio Azteca gang

2011-06-21T10:26:00.000-05:00

[We received one of these questions from a reader and will respond since we are familiar with the background. Q: A newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, online had a story yesterday about the Barrio Azteca gang that alleges the gang collected quotas from 47 other gangs in El Paso. What do the authorities in El Paso, Texas, have to say about this?]
A: We believe the original source for this information came from an article in Mexidata in 2009. The Mexidata article states that the gang charged a "tax" to 47 street dealers, not 47 street gangs, which is correct. Considerable information about the gang's inner workings was revealed during the U.S. federal trial in El Paso against several gang leaders. As far as we know, the El Paso Times was the only news media that covered the entire trial under the byline of Daniel Borunda. (Here is a link to the Mexidata article http://mexidata.info/id2266.html) - J.J. Schwartz

Gold Cup games involving Mexico team under scrutiny by FIFA and Interpol

2011-06-18T19:23:00.000-05:00

See more at the following link

http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/588/gold-cup/2011/06/18/2537794/report-three-gold-cup-games-under-investigation-for-match

Mexican drug cartels recruit women for hit squads

2011-06-18T10:53:00.000-05:00

Security News
Cartels recruit women for hit squads
By Kent Paterson
June 17, 2011

In Mexico, young girls and women work as look-outs and even soldiers for criminal syndicates.

This week, security officials in the western state of Jalisco presented to the media three alleged female spies and hit women who were tied to the Zetas organization. The young women were arrested following a pair of shootouts June 14 with Jalisco state and municipal police that left six suspected Zetas dead and 10 others arrested, almost all of them between 16 and 21 years of age.

Maria Celeste, a 16-year-old from Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, was reportedly fresh out of boot camp. The teen told reporters she had received a two-month training course conducted by former military personnel in the handling of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, but had not yet been instructed in the use of grenades.

“I was invited by some friends who were going to work for the Zetas,” she said.

A separate report identified the trainer as 24-year-old Ricardo Adan Villareal, a former soldier assigned to the 8th Infantry Battalion in Mazatlan. Villareal was reportedly killed during last Tuesday’s confrontations.

A 21-year-old identified as Beatriz Hernandez said she was part of an eight-woman cell tasked with monitoring authorities on behalf of the Zetas. Originally from Veracruz, Beatriz said she worked in the town of Fresnillo, Zacatecas, in return for a salary of a little less than $400 every 15 days. Another 21-year-old detainee, Maria Guadalupe Sandoval, was paraded before the media dressed in military-style clothing.

According to Sandoval, her knowledge of weaponry and previous combat experience netted a monthly salary of about $1,000 (U.S.). Mexico’s current daily minimum wage is about $5, and jobs paying more than three daily minimum wages can be very scarce in Jalisco and Zacatecas.

Within the past two years, stories of female hit squads have also surfaced in Ciudad Juarez to the north. According to one press account, dozens of women killers were in the employ of La Linea, an organization which is now said to be aligned with the Zetas.

The armed encounters that resulted in the arrests of Sandoval and the other alleged Zetas occurred in a section of Jalisco bordering the state of Zacatecas that has been a flash point of violence.

Luis Carlos Najera, Jalisco state secretary of public security, told the Mexican press that the Zetas are attempting to establish a corridor between the coastal state of Nayarit and Zacatecas that would have to pass through his state, but that Jalisco police have fought off the attempts so far.

In the aftermath of other clashes in the same region last month, Mexican authorities detained 18 suspects and confiscated weapons as well as a so-called a narco-laboratory set up to manufacture illegal drugs. The hardware seized by law enforcement this week included two armored trucks, an M-60 machine gun, several assault rifles, a grenade launcher and ammunition.

An alleged Zeta leader, “Comandante Centeno,” was reported among those allegedly slain this week. He was identified as 41-year-old Heriberto Centeno Madrid of Fresnillo, Zacatecas.

Centeno had been a fugitive since escaping from a Zacatecas prison together with 52 other inmates in May 2009.
###

Human right group: Mexican deportees fear border violence

2011-06-16T19:52:00.000-05:00

From No More Deaths organization

DETAINED MIGRANTS CALL FOR SUPPORT TO PREVENT THEIR DEPORTATION TO MEXICO INTO HANDS OF CARTELS TO BE KIDNAPPED AND MURDERED:

By Hannah Hafter/No More Deaths

TUCSON, ARIZONA (June 12, 2011) - “PLEASE SAVE US. We, as in my fellow inmates, find ourselves in the Torrance County Detention Facility and we are scared for our lives.”
This was the first line of one of the four letters, received by No More Deaths on Friday, June 10, signed by a total of 21 people sentenced to detention in New Mexico for crossing the U.S./Mexico border through the Arizona desert, undocumented.
All the letters express extreme fear of being kidnapped or murdered if they are deported through the border states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas (on the other side of the border from New Mexico and Texas).
In these states, organized crime now has more power than the local government and migrants are regularly targeted upon arrival for extortion, violence, and forced conscription under threat of death.
Over 34,500 people have been killed over the last four years in drug cartel and gang related violence, with over half the killings in 2010 taking place in Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas.
No More Deaths is launching a campaign in response to these calls for support, and demands an end to all deportations through these eastern border states because of the imminent safety risks to deportees.
Both ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the Border Patrol are currently sending deportees through these ports. At the same time, the border ports of Agua Prieta and Naco, Sonora, Mexico, have not been used for repatriation in over 8 months, even though they are known to be significantly safer for deportees.
Human rights advocates throughout the country began calling and sending faxes to the offices of Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, and John Morton, director of ICE, to call for an immediate end to deportations through the Mexican border states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas.
The letter’s author continues with a story: “[One of the inmates here was last deported through Texas and he was] kidnapped and held hostage along with other deportees and was always at gunpoint. Some didn’t have family or had no money to pay the ransom so this group killed them and the ones that paid escaped death but not a beating. On the other side of the border of Texas is where this takes place every day.”
With the United States deporting upwards of 1,000 people each day to Mexico, a unique and horrifying situation of exploitation has emerged: cartels feed off the constant flow of migrants, using corrupt police and government agencies intended to assist migrants to funnel recent deportees directly into their hands.
According to another letter, “When one crosses the border the municipal police is just waiting and watching for deportees. They pull you over with the excuse that they are going to help you ... this is a lie and part of the scam. These police work for the [cartels]. They take you to an abandoned alley or house [where] at gunpoint your eyes are bandaged and your feet and hands are tied. And so begins the nightmare.”
Migrants given prison sentences for crossing the border are also routinely separated from their belongings, including identification, all their money, and lists of phone numbers of family members. The lack of resources, proof of identity, and ability to contact support highly intensifies existing dangers.
According to Hannah Hafter, No More Deaths volunteer from Tucson, AZ, “No border town is completely safe, and all deportations are separating families and ripping apart communities.
The U.S. government still has a responsibility to protect people from imminent violence. They are not only endangering lives – they are also financing the drug trade by handing them kidnapping victims.
Janet Napolitano and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security should intervene to ensure the safety of the 21 detainees who wrote us from the Torrance County Detention Facility, put an immediate end to all deportations through the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, and ensure that all deportees receive their belongings including identification and money.”
The inmates writing from Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico have release dates between June 15 and June 17. They request to be sent through the border port in the state of Sonora as an alternative. The last letter, signed by all 21 detainees, reads, “We are not delinquents. We are working people, we have families waiting for us in Mexico, and we fear for our lives. For your attention and understanding, we thank you, and God bless you and us.”
No More Deaths is an all-volunteer organization providing direct humanitarian aid to migrants in southern Arizona and northern Sonora. For more on their work visit www.nomoredeaths.org

Historic peace caravan leaves its mark on Juarez and El Paso border

2011-06-16T12:47:00.002-05:00

By Kent Paterson
Frontera NorteSur

Love, Struggle and Memory in Ciudad Juarez

JUAREZ, MEXICO -- Completing an epic journey across Mexico, the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity arrived late last week to a tumultuous welcome in Ciudad Juarez, the beleaguered border city poet and caravan organizer Javier Sicilia calls Mexico’s “epicenter of pain.”

Over the course of two hectic and memorable days, perhaps thousands of Juarenses turned out to different events to remember the dead of the so-called narco war and other forms of violence, to demand justice for victims and, in a sweeping response to social, economic and political
decay, to begin drafting the blueprint of a new nation.

Leobardo Alvarado, organizer for the Juarez Assembly for Peace with Justice and Dignity, told Frontera NorteSur that more than 100 local groups coalesced to support the caravan and its message. “I think the most important thing is that we are together,” Alvarado said. “We have never
seen this before.”

The caravan rolled into Ciudad Juarez at a time when not only violence continued unabated, but when the earth itself was seemingly withering in anguish. As a blistering heat pounded the city, dust rose from a land sucked dry by months of unrelenting drought.

Instead of life-giving water, clumps of trash littered the bed of the Rio Grande; to the northwest a mammoth wildfire drove thousands of people from their homes in Arizona and sent dense smoke over New Mexico, coloring the normally blue skies more like the dull gray of the worst years of smoggy
Los Angeles or Mexico City.

On Friday, June 10, hundreds of people from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and the US gathered at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (UACJ) to hack out a national citizens’ pact for peace, justice and social reform. Going into the meeting, six points- guided by a commitment to peace and
non-violence- provided the framework for a more detailed, national pact among civil society organizations.

Activists with Chihuahua City’s new Citizen Movement for Peace and Dignified Life, sisters Alejandra and Ari Rico participated in the meeting.

A day earlier, on Thursday, June 9, thousands of people staged a march in the Chihuahua state capital in support of the caravan. According to Alejandra, the march and rally in front of state government offices was a “marvelous event” that signaled the stirring of grassroots response to
years of spiraling violence.

In 2009 and 2010, the Rico sisters returned to their hometown after years away in the US and other parts of Mexico. Alejandra worked as an educator in the Other Mexico, living in the “New Chihuahua” of the Colorado mountains where Mexican immigrants toiled away in affluent tourist
communities enjoying a then-thriving leisure economy.

But the city the Rico sisters came back to was a far different one they left a decade before. Soon the returning siblings heard first-hand accounts of shoot-outs, robberies, auto thefts and kidnappings. A cousin was injured by shattered glass from a stray bullet fired during a
shoot-out he had nothing to do with. Alejandra’s parents warned her against walking at night.

“This did not go on at all in my Chihuahua of my childhood, of my adolescence, of my youth,” Alejandra reflected.

Conversely, last week’s pro-caravan mobilization indicated that the public is wearying of the violence and demanding genuine solutions, added Ari. “It is the hour that Mexico unites,” she said. “It’s time that we leave behind the north, the south and the center. We are one country.”

Meeting in nine thematically-assigned workshops, different groups at the UACJ discussed tactics and strategies of the six-point citizen pact. Reconvened for a popular assembly, they reviewed the proposals for later possible incorporation into the pact and agreed to them by consensus.

A few of the proposals included holding an international conference against money laundering and arms trafficking; symbolic occupations of banks; expropriating illicitly-obtained businesses for the social good; naming a white-collar prosecutor; establishing a youth television network;
and ensuring that the minimum wage, ground up by inflation, be sufficient to cover basic expenses as guaranteed by the Mexican constitution.

Going beyond violence and justice issues per se, activists voiced strong support for labor and indigenous rights. The caravan participants demanded that Mexico live up to its national and international obligations to indigenous people under the International Labor Organization, the United
Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People and the 1995 San Andres Accords between the Mexican government and Zapatista National Liberation Army.

The Ciudad Juarez meeting protested the criminal burnings of seven indigenous communities in Durango and Chihuahua; backed the struggle of the Purepecha community of Cheran, Michoacan, against illegal logging; supported the right of autonomy for the Nahuatl community of Santa Maria Ostula, Michoacan; and endorsed the opposition of indigenous communities in San Luis Potosi and Guerrero to new mining concessions.

After the university assembly, the caravan rambled over to the Benito Juarez Monument in the city’s downtown for a mass rally and pact signing. Erected in honor of one of Mexico’s most revered historic leaders, the monument was decked out with pictures of the murdered and disappeared, poems, messages and slogans.

A remarkable cross section of Mexican society filed into the monument grounds-former braceros, small farmers, workers, professionals, students and housewives. A contingent from Justice without Borders marched across one of the international bridges from neighboring El Paso and into the
unfolding demonstration.

Holding banners and chanting “Miss Ana, Miss Ana,” one vocal and well-organized group called for the freedom of respected El Paso elementary school teacher Ana Isela Martinez, who was jailed May 27, 2011 in Ciudad Juarez for allegedly possessing marijuana. Supporters contend she was set up to transport a load of dope across the border without her knowledge.

“We are going to continue with the public pressure, because any resident of Ciudad Juarez can be Miss Ana,” said Carlos Barragan, Martinez’s nephew.

Standing out in their pink t-shirts, members of Mothers in Search of Justice milled around the quilt they are patching together that shows the pictures of murdered loved ones and features written remembrances. They call it the Blanket of Love.

Vicky Caraveo, the group coordinator, said the quilt is a work-in-progress that will be taken around the community so people can add photos and stories to the blanket.

“We can display what is happening, but with love and respect,” Caraveo said. “So the world can understand that our kids are not a number.” According to the long-time women’s activist, who along with the late Esther Chavez Cano began protesting gender violence nearly two decades ago, the quilt will even be available for exhibition in the U.S.

Guadalupe Ivonne Estrada is one of the people on the Blanket of Love. Found murdered in Chamizal Park in 1993, the 16-year-old was one of the first publicized victims of the Ciudad Juarez femicides. Estrada left behind an infant daughter who is now turning 19. The young woman stood at the edge of the quilt but declined to talk about a mother she never really knew.

“All this is very difficult for her,” said Victoria Salas, the grandmother of the young woman and Estrada’s mother. According to the Ciudad Juarez resident, her teenage daughter disappeared from the Philips plant where
she worked. A company professional was among the possible suspects, Salas said.

“We don’t have justice in Ciudad Juarez. There is none, and no explanation why (Guadalupe) disappeared,” Salas said. “We are in a lawless land.” In 2011 young girls keep disappearing, including three from her own neighborhood, she added.

As the event kicked into high gear, spokespersons for the movement gathered on the stage-Javier Sicilia; Olga Reyes, member of the exiled Juarez Valley family devastated by homicides and violence; and Julian Lebaron, brother of slain anti-kidnapping activist and Chihuahua Mormon community
leader Benjamin Lebaron; and Luz Maria Davila, mother of two young men shot down in the infamous Villas de Salvarcar house party massacre last year.

They were joined by other victims’ relatives from across Mexico. A speaker reminded the crowd that this day, June 10, was chosen for the signing of the citizen pact to honor the students who were massacred by government paramilitary squads on the same date in Mexico City in 1971.

Magdalena Garcia, widow of architect Ricardo Gatica, told how her husband disappeared and was then found murdered in 2009. Garcia recounted how she conducted her own investigation, tracing the car in which Garcia vanished.
Despite informing the authorities of the lead, no justice has been achieved in the case, she said.

“I want justice!” Garcia shouted. “It’s not fair that they left my children without their father. I will continue until the end!”
“You are not alone!” the crowd roared back.
Buckets of tears, pent-up emotions and oodles of anger burst and flowed from the stage and from the large crowd-almost as a cancerous bubble of violence, corruption and impunity that had been building up for 20 years suddenly popped just like Wall Street did in 2008.

“We are fed up!” shouted the crowd. More chants followed: “Up with Juarez!” “Long Live Mexico!”, “Long Live Spain!”, “Long Live Egypt!” “The People United Will Never be Defeated!” Beaming from the stage, the portraits of Mexican army officer Orlando Munoz Guzman, disappeared in Ciudad Juarez in 1993, and a more recent group of men from Guerrero
rounded out the scene.

Looking visibly exhausted, Javier Sicilia stood on the stage with a Mexican flag. The poet, whose trademark floppy hat has some comparing him to Indiana Jones and who could easily pass for a botanist or a fly fisherman, is the anti-thesis of the traditional macho leader. Arguably, however, he is Mexico’s man of the moment.

Sicilia’s uncompromising stance in protesting the murder of his son Juan Francisco in Cuernavaca, Morelos state earlier this year, inspired tens of thousands of Mexicans to join a still young but growing movement against violence and for deep-seated change.

In a subdued but firm voice, Sicilia said the caravan’s laying of a plaque in memory of Marisela Escobedo, the Ciudad Juarez activist mother brazenly murdered in Chihuahua City last December, is an example of how Mexicans need to recover the memories of violence victims.

“We have to fill the country with the names of the dead, so that the authorities remember the obligation they have,” Sicilia declared. He then read Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy’s “Ithaca.”

“In the history of tragedy and pain that this country is going through, the Mexican government did not count on the strength and the consistency of a poet,” observed Ciudad Juarez writer and activist Juan Carlos Martinez.

On one side of the stage, a man with sad, protruding eyes held up a large poster of a young girl with big and happy eyes. The man was Jose Rayas, father of Marcela Viviana “Bibis” Rayas, a 16-year-old girl murdered in
Chihuahua City in 2003.

In comments to Frontera Sur, Rayas told how Chihuahua state law enforcement authorities tried to get him to go along with pushing “an absurd story” that pinned the murder on two former Chihuahua City residents, U.S. citizen Cynthia Kiecker and her Mexican husband Ulises Perzabal.

Tortured into making a false confession, Kiecker and Perzabal were later acquitted by a judge after an international campaign for their freedom made the case a diplomatic issue between Mexico and the US in 2004.

More than eight years after his daughter’s slaying, Rayas said there has been no movement in the halls of justice. Different justice officials come and go, he said, promising to reopen the murder investigation but always producing the same null results.

Rayas added that he’s lost faith in the justice system, but found inspiration with Javier Sicilia’s movement. The caravan, he said, gave birth to a nationwide “unity of victims.”

On his poster, Rayas introduces the public to his slain daughter. Biographical tid-bits reveal a Chihuahua City teen who liked the color green and dreamed of becoming a psychologist. A lover of rock and trova music, she also liked to eat spare ribs.

As the caravan wound through Mexico, Rayas said he added a few more words to the poster of the girl he calls “his little swallow,” the beautiful youth who abruptly left the world "without even a kiss:"

Bibis:

Although you are not with us now,
You will always be in our hearts
We miss that look, that smile you gave us
We miss all of you
We miss you a lot
Remember that we love you a lot
Don’t forget it.

In Ciudad Juarez and Mexico, even as violence continues to rage away, many question what impact if any the caravan and the citizen pact will have on the course of history. While future developments are increasingly difficult to predict in an age of social, environmental and economic upheaval, it’s probably a safe bet to conclude that Javier Sicilia and the
Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity have added a new, unforeseen force in the political and social landscape of the country.

“We are going to continue with this,” Jose Rayas vowed. “I think it is time to stop this violence.”
###

Khaleej Times: Journalists around the world are under fire

2011-06-14T12:56:00.000-05:00

Reprinted from the Khaleej Times

Blood on bylines

Allan Jacob (FINE PRINT)

14 June 2011, 7:19 PM

Shooting the messenger rings truer now than ever before with journalists making news by becoming easy targets on the street.

At close range, it is simple to pump bullets into their chests because they are without bullet-proof jackets and brandish no Smith & Wesson pistols in the line of duty.

They are less dangerous dead to many than in print or on television screens. The sound of gunshots don’t reverberate, the blood won’t curdle to stop the flow of life. Soon, they are a distant memory. The fallen soldiers of a so-called free Press.

Sunday’s murder in broad daylight of the investigations editor of an Indian tabloid has thrown more red on daily pages already filled with rivers of blood and gore. The man was a master at his craft with a yen for independent reporting, said tributes across the media. He covered crime, but in the end became one of its many victims.

The tabloid’s editor wrote glowingly  about him, and we quote: ‘‘He was fearless (so fearless that his fearlessness often scared me); he was honest; his integrity was beyond reproach and just about everyone he worked  with treated him as a friend, not a colleague.’’

‘‘Journalism is a frighteningly lonely profession. Journalists work in teams, but when  it comes to taking responsibility for their  work, they stand alone in the firing line,’’  said the tribute.

Standing alone. That’s the situation many newshounds find themselves in today. It’s a lonely profession digging up facts, stringing them together, facing the flak and soldiering on with only occasional bylines to show for  the effort.

Little wonder then that many mainstream media hopefuls drop out, while those in the know thrive on handouts of every kind coming from every corner. There are gifts galore to be pocketed if you don’t ask uncomfortable questions. Only the most committed media practitioners stay clear of the filthy lucre. They are fearless ones who break a story others would not have touched with a bargepole.

These brave, unheralded men and women often bite the dust in the killing fields of a ruthless system fed and nourished on wads of banknotes, political and business clout, and muscle power.

Two weeks ago, a Pakistani journalist was slain after being tortured. No one knows by who, and why, though rumours swirl about the circumstances behind his death. In fact, he was missing for almost a week and had feared for his life, according to Human Rights Watch. He was dispensable, because he may have allegedly touched some raw nerve in the establishment. International Press Institute statistics show the South Asian country was the most dangerous with 16 deaths last year.

According to the watchdog, 102  journalists were killed across the world  in 2010. This was eight fewer than the  previous year’s 110 media victims,  which was the second bloodiest since 1997.

Asia was the most dangerous place with 40 killed in wars, crossfire and targeted murders like those of the Mumbai journalist. Latin America was next with 32 journalists meeting a similar fate. Honduras, with 10 deaths, and Mexico, with 12, were the most deadly in that region. Some Mexican victims had their throats slit for reporting on the alleged nexus between drug cartels and politicians.

It’s normal to assume that war correspondents die in the frontlines of battle like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. They are the popular bylines in death. World attention is on these theatres of war, while crimes against journalists in other countries are often ignored.

We claim we love the truth and the truth can set us free, but when reporters bring up the ugly truth, the muck can go around and someone’s carefully cultivated reputation can get smeared. It’s a visage of society we would rather not stare at for dear life. The feel good factor of living is more important than some shocking crime story which is a reflection of the violent ways of our times.

‘Family TV channels and newspapers’ do not cover rapes, murders, abuses, corruption and crimes of the most heinous kind, this writer was told recently by a holier-than- thou type.

Unsolved cases of murders against journalists have risen in the past decade with Iraq topping the list with 92. The Philippines has 56 unsolved cases, while Mexico has 13, Russia 16, Pakistan 14 and India 7.

The statistics are numbing, so is the spectacular silence of a society going with the flow, family values in tow.

It takes courage of conviction to stand up and be counted like these scribes with spine. May their tribe increase.

Allan Jacob is Chief Reporter of Khaleej Times.  He can be reached at allan@khaleejtimes.com

Smugglers fire at Texas state trooper at the Texas-Mexico border

2011-06-09T16:11:00.000-05:00

Shots fired at Texas state trooper during drug interdiction attempt

Texas DPS issued this statement:

Early this morning (June 9, 2011), U. S. law enforcement officers participating in a multi-agency Texas Ranger Recon operation were fired upon from Mexico while attempting to interdict a large drug load. At least three suspected drug runners were wounded in the exchange of gunfire.

A suspicious vehicle on the U. S. side of the Rio Grande River was observed along with two cartel drug recovery boats. Three law enforcement patrol boats arrived on the scene and received heavy gun fire from the Mexico side while attempting to interdict the drug-laden boats.

Mexican authorities were notified of the abandoned cartel drug-laden boats and are on the scene.
###

(The attack occurred at the border in South Texas; further details will be forthcoming. - Kelly McKenzie)
###

Official gives size of drug cartel armies in Juarez, Mexico

2011-06-08T10:59:00.000-05:00

From the El Paso Times

9,000 cartel members estimated to be in Juárez
By Diana Washington Valdez \ EL PASO TIMES
Posted: 06/08/2011 07:56:22 AM MST

The Chihuahua prosecutor general said Tuesday that within the Juárez region there are more than 9,000 active drug cartel members.
It is the first time a Mexican official has quantified the warring drug cartel organizations' membership.
Carlos Manuel Salas, the state's chief prosecutor, provided the figures and other information in a statement after a meeting between Chihuahua officials and business leaders and ex-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who was invited to Juárez to discuss security issues.
Salas said Chihuahua officials have rejected the manner in which Juárez has become stigmatized by being called the most violent city in the world.
"What happened is that the cartels entered into a conflict, and then
http://www.elpasotimes.com/juarez/ci_18226830?source=most_viewed

Letter: The anti-Chapo Guzman trend

2011-06-03T12:14:00.000-05:00

Letter to the editor/June 1, 2011:

Dear Editor:

I have a nagging feeling that it has become fashionable to focus on Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman Loera as the sole bad drug lord in Mexico for a reason. What about Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, leader of the infamous Juarez drug cartel in Juarez, Chihuahua, where you have a record number of murders? It is odd that Forbes has mentioned only Guzman as one of the richest men in the world and not mention other mafiosos around the world, including those in Europe, who are very wealthy. Books and magazine articles have transformed "Chapo" into a bigger-than-life legend. For me, this is all part of a campaign to single out this man by either his rivals or the government (or governments) for some strategic purpose. Have the others turned witness? Will they get off after "el Chapo" is arrested? I believe it is worth delving into, although it might attract threats and book-burnings instead of book tours and book sales. There is something there for any intrepid journalist to look into.

- Jose Manuel Iglesias

- (retired law enforcement with global experience)

- (Please do not print my home city in Mexico or my second surname)

Mexican author of book on drug cartels visits Juarez, Mexico, today

2011-06-02T13:38:00.001-05:00

Press release (06/02/2011)

Mexican journalist and author Anabel Hernandez is in Juarez, Mexico, today as part of a tour to promote her book "Los Señores del Narco." She was scheduled to be at the Autonomous University of Juarez (UACJ) bookstore in the Pronaf.
###

Mexican poet and activist to lead peace march with stops at the U.S.-Mexico border

2011-06-02T13:28:00.000-05:00

PRESS RELEASE
June 2, 2011
By Justice without Borders

Javier Sicilia to lead national caravan for peace; stops include Juarez and El Paso

EL PASO, TEXAS - Mexican poet and activist Javier Sicilia has joined the thousands of Mexicans who have become victims of the violence and injustice that plagues the Mexican nation. Sicilia has called for a massive march across Mexico for peace with justice and dignity. He will lead the caravan under the name National Covenant for Peace, from Cuernavaca, Morelos, on June 4, 2011, which will make its way north to Ciudad Juarez on June 10.
Several civic and religious organizations are collaborating to welcome Sicilia under the movement Justice Without Borders. El Paso and Juarez residents are invited to join the peaceful march on June 10 in Juarez.
Journalists, educators, artists and other residents of New Mexico, California, Arizona, and Washington, D. C., also will participate in Juarez and El Paso to support the covenant for peace.
The borderland community invited to also join us at 11 a.m. on June 11 at San Jacinto Plaza, where Sicilia and other speakers will address this all-important issue that is affecting communities on both sides of the border.
Justice Without Borders is asking for the investigation of each crime, for protection of the victims of the war against drugs and an end to the Merida Plan.
There will be educational booths and activities for the family in addition to music, poetry and art. The event promoting justice and peace will end at 1 p.m.
Contact information:
Nancy Gonz_alez, ngonzalez4@miners.utep.edu, 487-5446
Zulma Mendez, zulma.y.mendez@gmail.com, 539-1399
Socorro Tabuenca, tabuencac@yahoo.com, 727-2615
###

BeanJuiceDispatch: New page about El Paso, Texas

2011-06-02T10:17:00.002-05:00

See it here
http://beanjuicedispatches.wordpress.com/

El Paso Times: Brutality is changing Mexico society

2011-06-01T09:49:00.000-05:00

Report: Brutality altering Mexican society
By Diana Washington Valdez \ EL PASO TIMES
06/01/2011

A new breed of "holy warriors" and alarming degrees of brutality in drug-cartel violence threaten to change Mexican society, according to an article in the latest Small Wars Journal.

Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, co-authors of the article, said frightening examples of brutality include skinning people, beheadings, castrations, cutting off breasts, removing hearts, throwing victims into containers filled with acid, and setting people on fire while they are alive.
(See full story at http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_18179172?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.com)

Mexico investigates terrorism, organ-trafficking

2011-05-31T11:06:00.000-05:00

Copyright (C) 2001 WLM Enterprises

By Kelly McKenzie
Exclusive for WLM/May 31, 2011

MEXICO CITY - The Mexican federal attorney general's office (PGR) used anti-terrorism laws between 2007 and 2010 to seek arrest warrants for certain homicides related to drug cartels and to suspected political rebels, according to government documents.

The PGR also obtained arrest warrants in four cases of suspected organ-trafficking between 2007 and 2009.

Mexican officials persistently have denied that terrorism and organ-trafficking (or body parts-trafficking) take place in Mexico, although allegations of both surface from time to time.

Most recently, Mexican officials publicly stated that the term "narco insurgency" does not apply to drug cartels in that country despite evidence to the contrary.
###

The degree of brutality in Mexican drug cartel violence is worsening

2011-05-24T09:30:00.001-05:00

J.J. Schwartz recommends reading

"Extreme Barbarism, a Death Cult, and Holy Warriors in Mexico:
Societal Warfare South of the Border?"
by Dr. Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan

See article at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/769-bunkersullivan.pdf

Juarez disappearances of young women and femicides continue

2011-05-17T09:58:00.000-05:00

Copyright (C) 2011

Reprinted from Frontera NorteSur
May 16, 2011
By Kent Paterson/Frontera NorteSur
Ciudad Juarez News

"Generations of the Disappeared"

When young women and girls began vanishing in Ciudad Juarez about two decades ago, Esmeralda Castillo was not even born. But in 2009, the 14-year-old middle school student joined the ranks of the disappeared.

“She was a normal girl, just like the rest,” Jose Luis Castillo,Esmeralda’s father, said in an interview.

The life-long resident of Ciudad Juarez said family members suspect Esmeralda disappeared while transferring buses on a Tuesday afternoon in the same downtown zone which is regularly plastered with posters of the latest missing women and where dozens of others have seemingly dropped off the face of the earth over the years.

Like other anguished parents before him, Castillo has no answers as to Esmeralda’s whereabouts. Castillo said he made routine treks to the morgue and probed the state prosecutor’s office responsible for investigating the
disappearance. But after nearly two years, he can report no advances in locating Esmeralda.

In previous years, many relatives of the disappeared complained that state police investigators gave them the run-around, concocted wild stories, expressed indifference or argued that a lack of resources and personnel limited searches. Castillo, however, has a different account of his
disillusionment with state law enforcement.

“I come to the prosecutor’s office and they tell me, ‘Look for her yourself. We are afraid'.”

According to Castillo, the police told him they would need three patrols and a half-dozen officers to interview a possible witness or source of information.

Engulfed in a so-called drug war, Ciudad Juarez can be dangerous turf for cops. Police officers are frequent targets of ambushes and drive-by shootings.

“I don’t want to lose hope for a solution,” said Francisca Galvan, adviser to a new group of relatives formed to find their loved ones, “I still have hope that as organizations, as civil society we can find a solution, but there is no solution on the part of the authorities.”

Galvan said her group estimates 170 young women and girls are missing in Ciudad Juarez. Some cases are never publicized, she said, adding that group members sometimes run across distraught mothers wandering the downtown area in search of their daughters.

Unlike some earlier cases, Galvan said the latest ones involve potential victims disappearing without a trace.

“It would be a failure for the people of Mexico if no solution is found to this situation which has existed since 1993” Galvan insisted.

Relatives’ frustrations prompted small groups of them to stage demonstrations in front of the state prosecutors’ office in Ciudad Juarez this month.

Family members of the old disappeared joined with relatives of the new disappeared, whose numbers soared after conflict between organized crime groups escalated into all-out war in January 2008.

The spike in disappearances of young females also coincided with the deployment of thousands of Mexican soldiers and federal police as part of Operation Chihuahua, the government campaign officially proclaimed to curb
violence and bring order to the streets of Ciudad Juarez.

“I am not crazy. I am a mother, who is very hurt by the disappearance of my daughter,” said Eva Arce, who has searched relentlessly for her daughter Silvia since 1998.

In a lengthy Internet radio interview, Arce recounted how she had been threatened for investigating Silvia’s disappearance, and how she had spoken to two former high-ranking federal officials-ex-special prosecutor
Maria Lopez Urbina and Guadalupe Morfin, the one-time head of the now-defunct Commission for the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women in Ciudad Juarez, about the numerous leads that pointed to underworld and police involvement in the disappearances of Silvia and her friend Griselda Mares.

According to Arce, the only response she got from Lopez and Morfin was advice to be cautious since the Ciudad Juarez mother was surfing dangerous waters.

Elizabeth Flores, director of Pastoral Obrera, the Roman Catholic Church’s social action arm in Ciudad Juarez, told Frontera NorteSur that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has specifically ordered the Mexican government to adopt measures that would facilitate swift and efficient
investigations of disappearances of young women and girls.

Since the late 1980s, many of the disappeared were later found murdered, with numerous unsolved slayings having the characteristics of sex-related serial killings.

While efforts were made under the administration of former State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez to design emergency and investigative response plans for disappearances, the protocols have not been put it into practice, Flores contended.

In a 2009 sentence the Mexican government is obligated to follow, the Inter-American Court praised efforts by federal, state and local officials to implement focused policing and search protocols in both 2003 and 2005, but stressed that operational activities needed to become much more
rigorous.

The Inter-American Court’s order was part of the sentence handed down in connection to the murders of three young women in Ciudad Juarez back in 2001.

In rendering its judgment, the Inter-American Court also ordered the government to create a web page that includes a mechanism for members of the public to communicate with authorities - even in an “anonymous” fashion - about disappeared women.

“The information contained in the web page should be permanently updated,” the Inter-American Court declared.

The international justices noted their concern that such a web page previously maintained by the old Morfin commission had not been updated since December 2006.

More than three years later, the federal web page dedicated to missing women (mujeresdesaparecidascdjuarez.gob.mx) has itself disappeared. After clicking the old web address, a user will be routed to an Interior Ministry web site with information for religious associations.

Still, the Chihuahua state government does have a web page it declares is “in compliance with Resolution 20 of the sentence.”

For Ciudad Juarez, the page lists 108 females missing from 1995 (several years after disappearances began mounting) to April 11, 2011. However, only 28 of the missing have photos to accompany their names. Notably, the page mentions that 85 of the disappeared have gone missing since 2008.

The website also lists 107 females missing from other parts of Chihuahua state between 1993 to April 2011. But again, few names are accompanied by photos or other information that might alert members of the public who could have pertinent information.

The Chihuahua web page lists phone numbers the public can call but does not have a special e-mail address where information can be sent.

Hundreds of men also have reportedly been the victims of forced disappearance in Ciudad Juarez since the early 1990s, but except for the occasional street poster little public information is ever aired about the cases.

Relatives vow to press for answers about their missing daughters and loved ones. In an exasperated voice, Castillo described how his young daughter’s disappearance had devastated her mother and her family.

He blamed the overall circumstances surrounding Esmeralda’s disappearance on the violence and drug trafficking that’s ripped apart his city.

“It’s sad to be in Ciudad Juarez and see a little part of it die day-by-day,” Castillo lamented.

The father urged a mass protest in which all the residents hang up their telephones for one hour as a way of sending the authorities a message that “Juarez is united.”
---------------------------------------------------
Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

Mexican drug dealer alleges collusion with U.S. agencies

2011-04-10T23:34:00.001-05:00

Copyright (C) 2011, WLM & Mexican Roulette & translated interview of Diana Washington Valdez by Angelo Rossinni for Post Fin

"Ismael Mayo Zambada's son, incarcerated in the United States, threatened to disclose a scandal that may be worse than the ATF's Operation Fast and Furious. J. Vicente "Vicentillo" Zambada Niebla alleged that DEA and FBI officials authorized him to engage in drug-trafficking from 2004 to March 2009 for the purpose of investigating the drug trade."

(Questions by Rossini): We came back to you Diana two years after we first spoke to you about the Mexican drug cartel wars. Thank you for the link to the interview you did in Italy. Very interesting. When you spoke before about the Chicago connection, is this what you had in mind?

(Responses by Washington Valdez): I was at the Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting, and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, was there, too. It was at the University of California at Berkeley. I suggested to NPR reporters from Chicago who were at the conference to do a story about the "pipeline" from the U.S.-Mexico border at Juarez-El Paso to Chicago. It is a very old pipeline that is still in effect. At the same conference, I urged a prominent Washington Post reporter to investigate the drug wars in Mexico. I told her that those of us at the border and other hot spots may be on the frontlines, certainly where the violence is concerned, but that the real action was in the halls of government institutions in Washington, D.C. The U.S. policies and politics behind the drug wars are played out there. The two major recent disclosures reaffirmed those earlier suspicions.

Q: Do you believe Zambada?
A: I don't know yet, but if Vicente Zambada Niebla can prove his allegations, then we have another Rafael Caro Quintero situation. Caro Quintero, a flamboyant drug dealer linked to Enrique "Kiki" Camarena's torture-murder, allegedly allowed U.S. intelligence assets the use of his ranch in Mexico to train Contras during the Contra-Sandinista conflict. U.S. authorities have accused Zambada of trafficking massive quantities of cocaine into the United States. His father, Mayo Zambada in Mexico, reportedly is an associate of Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman.

Q: How will Mexican officials react to this?
A: The next presidential election in Mexico will take place in 2012. Politicians of different parties are using the drug wars as a political weapon to wield in their campaigns. An important question is whether the drug wars represent a "controlled conflict" or if it is unraveling and we can expect more disorder as the cartels break down and multiply into smaller and more numerous "cartels."

Q: How did you find Italy this time?
A: A beautiful and fantastic country with incredible people who are facing many of the same political and economic issues that Americans back home are confronting.
- A.R.

Mexico's body count exceeds 230,995 in 18 years

2011-04-08T13:50:00.000-05:00

Copyright (C) 2011, WLM

PAN and PRI administrations account for totals 

By Kelly McKenzie

WLMJ (04/08/2011)

Gustavo Madero, a prominent Mexican politician said during a debate in Mexico of multiparty leaders that 102,995 people died as a result of drug-related violence over the past nine years during which members of his party, the National Action Party or PAN, held the presidency.

 However, Madero said, under the previous nine years before PAN presidents came into power (Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon), when presidents of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) were in office, drug violence claimed about 128,000 lives.

 Notimex and other Mexican national media reported on the widely publicized debate's startling figures. It is the first time Mexican politicians disclosed historical homicide figures in the context of the drug trade.

 Madero did not clarify whether the numbers included people who are presumed dead after they were abducted (forcibly disappeared) by drug-traffickers and their associates.

###

Jury in El Paso acquits Posada Carriles on all counts

2011-04-08T00:00:00.002-05:00

Reprinted with permission

Copyright(C)2011 WLM

UPDATE: Jury deliberated for about three hours before acquitting Luis Posada Carriles on all 11 counts after a 13-week trial.

Trial in Texas nears the end

By Kelly McKenzie
WLMJ (04/07/2011)

EL PASO, TEXAS - Luis Posada Carriles appeared animated as government and defense lawyers made their closing statements to the jury today that will decide his fate in coming days.
His trial began in U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone's courtroom nearly three months ago and only after countless motions and delays.
It began with numerous news media organizations attending, and ended with half a dozen reporters at most on the last day before the case goes to the jurors.
The protesters that dogged him before the trial, were gone too.
Carriles, 83, walked down the halls of the federal courthouse during breaks. His view from the fifth floor allowed him to see the city's downtown each day.
Across the border, in Juarez, Mexico, a raging war between drug cartels continued to claim lives each day. In contrast to its neighbor, El Paso enjoyed relative calm and safety.
At times, the dapper former CIA operative wore sunglasses, and looked the part of the celebrity that he is. An unusual one at that.
He is charged with 11 counts of making false statements, obstruction of justice and immigration-related violations
The U.S. government decided to prosecute him following Posada's immigration hearing in El Paso.
Posada is accused of lying about how he entered the United States illegally in 2005 and lying about his alleged role in 1997 bombings in Cuba that claimed the life of an Italian citizen.
Posada denied all the allegations.
Government documents, witnesses and other sources show that the Cuban native worked for the CIA during the Cold War era and tirelessly sought the demise of Fidel Castro.
# # #

Help Japan by donating to the Red Cross

2011-03-17T00:16:00.000-06:00

Special item

Pray for the people of Japan. Donate to the Red Cross emergency relief efforts.
Pray for peace in the Middle East and in Mexico.
http://www.redcross.org/

"(He) regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry." - Psalm 106:44

Our associates will be taking a break to pray for these and other needs.

Businesses in Juarez hired Zetas paramilitaries

2011-03-16T08:16:00.000-06:00

U.S. cable alleges Zetas operated as paramilitaries in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

Copyright © 2011 by WLM

By Kelly McKenzie (03/15/2011)
WLMJ

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO -- A U.S. diplomatic document appears to confirm that Zetas have been operating in Juarez, Mexico, during the drug cartel wars in the city.
Several businessmen allegedly hired the Zetas to protect their businesses.
The group consisted of at least eight Zetas who allegedly went to see military commanders in Juarez so they could purchase weapons from the army.
The weapons they wanted were the guns and rifles that the army had seized. The Zetas promised not to use the weapons against soldiers.
Mexican officials have denied the presence of paramilitaries in the state of Chihuahua, although the rumors persisted.
The information in the document came from Mexican officials and their informants.
###

Activist based in Juarez, Mexico, to seek U.S. asylum, march scheduled

2011-03-15T08:57:00.000-06:00

Jurado/CRLN

Cipriana Jurado seeks asylum
Peace & Dignity march set for Thursday in El Paso, Texas

Copyright © 2011 by WLM

By Kelly McKenzie (03/15/2011)
WLMJ

EL PASO, TEXAS -- Cipriana Jurado, 46, a longtime activist in Juarez, Mexico, will seek asylum in the United States after receiving death threats for her advocacy work, El Paso lawyer Carlos Spector said.

Spector, who represents other asylum cases, plans to conduct a news conference today in El Paso.

Jurado is internationally known for her work on behalf of low-income workers in Mexico. In recent years, she advocated for justice in the women's murders and disappearances, and against the militarization of Mexico's drug wars.

Jurado was picked up by the military in Juarez but released after the international community demanded that the government set her free.

Other activists have been threatened or killed in Mexico.

Malu Garcia, co-director of Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, fled Juarez with her family after receiving death threats. Someone had spread gasoline around the outside of her home and started a fire.

Marisela Ortiz, the other director of Nuestras Hijas, said she too has continued to receive deaths threats, including a specific one against her son.

Chihuahua Gov. Cesar Duarte has pledged to find the people who have attacked the activists in his state.

# # #

Notice
March for Peace & Dignity

The Border Farm Workers Center announced a march for peace and dignity beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday. The march will commence from the center's offices in downtown El Paso.

###

Diana Washington Valdez blog: Mexican judges in Rubi Frayre case resign, avoid p...

2011-03-14T23:26:00.000-06:00

Diana Washington Valdez blog: Mexican judges in Rubi Frayre case resign, avoid p...: "Copyight@2011 WLM By Kelly McKenzie WLMJ CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO -- Three Chihuahua state judges who acquitted a man accused of killing teen..."

Mexican judges in Rubi Frayre case resign, avoid political trial

2011-03-14T23:20:00.000-06:00

Copyight@2011 WLM

By Kelly McKenzie
WLMJ

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO -- Three Chihuahua state judges who acquitted a man accused of killing teenage mother Rubi Marisol Frayre Escobedo resigned their judicial posts, according to officials on Monday.

Frayre's mother, Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who fought tirelessly for justice in her daughter's case, was assassinated in December during a protest in front of the Chihuahua governor's palace.

Escobedo had stepped up her protest after the judges set free Sergio Barraza Bocanegro, who confessed to having killed Frayre, his common-law wife, in 2008.

The judges came unde fire after acquitting Barraza during one of the state's public proceedings under Chihuahua's new reformed legal system.

Before the reforms, suspects were required to prove their innocence; after the reforms, state ministerial officers had to prove a suspect's guilt.

The judges Catalina Ochoa, Rafael Boudid and Netzahualcoyotl Zuniga had faced a political trial by the state legislature.

Marisela Escobedo's emotional reaction to the acquittal was caught on camera.

Her murder by an unidentified man also was caught on camera.

# # #

La Mujer Obrera celebrates March 8 International Day of the Woman

2011-03-07T18:46:00.001-06:00

(Also see below for online links to Mexico art events. We remember the 2010 ArtMarch in Philadelphia.)

Posted by J.J. Schwartz/03-7-2011

Press Release

Honoring three border women in El Paso

La Mujer Obrera Award Fundraiser
March 8, 2011
Mercado Mayapan
2101 Myrtle Street

Contact: Cemelli de Aztlan
512.395.5442
cemelli@mujerobrera.org

“La Mujer Obrera Awards” fundraiser on International Women’s Day, March 8th, 2011 where we will be honoring notable women leaders in the community who have dedicated their lives promoting and upholding the rights of women on the border.

Our honorees include:

- Diana Washington Valdez- El Paso Times journalist who has put her own life on the line investigting the mass murders of women in Cuidad Juarez and continues to advocate against the violence and impunity occuring in Juarez.
- Terri Garcia- Vice President at Bank of America in El Paso who has taken great strides to ensure that low-income women have the tools and resources to break the cycle of poverty.
- Alicia Marentes- Grassroots United Farm Worker advocate whose dedicated her life representing El Paso migrants in support of labor and human rights.

La Mujer Obrera has been a strong presence on the border for the past 28 years. We educate and employ disenfranchised women in our community, and through our social enterprise business initiatives, we are breaking the cycle of poverty.

In this critical time, we are seeking support to continue our arts and educational programming. Proceeds from “La Mujer Obrera Awards” benefit buffet dinner assist us in supporting low-income women’s efforts in creating sustainable micro-enterprises in El Paso where women are creating a livelihood for themselves and their families. We welcome your support of our efforts toward educational and economic opportunites for women, as well as for a positive future for all El Paso.

Evening includes a traditional Mexican cuisine buffet & Live Music w/ Cieba . Tickets $25/person; $200/table (8 seats) call: 630-7048 or 512-395-5442 to reserve your tickets.
Thank you for your attention to our efforts to transform the current crisis facing low-income women workers and their families.
For more information visit: http://www.mujerobrera.org/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See other actions en español

Comunitario, 300 asistentes en promedio por evento:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An-KfckyXPY

Abierto, de 4 a 6 mil visitantes en promedio por evento:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZIvIwxRvF8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Frontera NorteSur: Special report by Kent Paterson - Silencing Women's Voices

2011-03-07T18:34:00.000-06:00

By Kent Paterson/March 7, 2011

The Silencing of Women’s Voices

On Tuesday, March 8, International Women’s Day 2011, the voices of many
prominent human rights defenders will be absent from Ciudad Juarez,
Mexico. Within the past 14 months, human rights campaigner Josefina Reyes,
poet Susana Chavez and activist mother Marisela Escobedo all have been
murdered, while Cipriana Jurado of the Worker Solidarity and Research
Center and Paula Flores have been forced to flee the city.

Eva Arce, another well-known women’s activist, has been the target of
previous attacks and threats, and Malu Garcia, a founder of the
anti-femicide organization May Our Daughters Return Home, had her house
set on fire last month.

Paula Flores, whose young daughter Sagrario Gonzalez was abducted and
murdered in 1998, not only was a strong advocate for relatives of femicide
victims, but a community organizer who worked to keep young people out of
the cycle of crime and violence in the low-income Lomas de Poleo section
of the border city.

“The murders of human rights activists show that public space can’t be
used,” asserted Dr. Julia Monarrez Fragoso, researcher and director of El
Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) in Ciudad Juarez. “You can’t raise
your voice and those that do are ‘deserving’ of their deaths.”

Additionally, activists’ relatives have become targets, with vivid
examples being the February killings of Elias and Magdalena Reyes, the
brother and sister of Josefina Reyes, along with Elias’ wife Luisa
Cornelas.

Interviewed on a Mexico City radio station last week, Marisela Reyes said
a new threat received by her slain sister Magdalena’s son was the final
straw, prompting the family to decide political asylum abroad was its only
realistic option.

As a first step in the asylum process, more than 20 surviving members of
the family then flew to Mexico City this past weekend. Prior to the mass
departure, some Ciudad Juarez news sites published photos of the hotel
where the family was staying under police protection.

Other stories later reported on an unusual demonstration of unnamed
persons accusing Reyes family members of besmirching the reputation of
local law enforcement; some anonymous comments published on the Internet
accused the Reyes clan of links with organized crime.

In a press release, the Mexican federal attorney general’s office (PGR)
said national authorities were collaborating with Chihuahua state law
enforcement in investigating last month’s murders of Reyes family members.
The PGR said all motives for the slayings were under consideration.

On Saturday, March 5, the Reyes family and their supporters ended a nearly
month-old protest encampment outside the Chihuahua state prosecutor’s
offices in Ciudad Juarez. Accompanied by Olga Reyes, several dozen
activists then staged a demonstration outside the US Consulate against
violence, militarization and US arms trafficking to Mexico.

Reyes said the protest was necessary because “people in many parts of
Mexico and in other countries don’t know what’s happening in Chihuahua.”
During the demonstration she wore a sash that read: “I am a Reyes Salazar
and don’t want another member of my family murdered.” In total, six
members of the family have been victims of homicide since 2008.

A spreading climate of terror was separately confirmed by Mexico’s
National Human Rights Commission, which requested state protection March 6
for relatives of victims of 2009 Villas de Salvarcar massacre of young
people in Ciudad Juarez. The government human rights agency said
protective measures were necessary to guarantee the safety and physical
integrity of the families.

On a closely related note, the Las Cruces-based solidarity group Amigos de
las Mujeres (Friends of Women) expressed grave concern about the “rash of
assassinations and attacks on activists who are demanding justice” carried
out by “unknown paramilitary organizations, and called attention to a
“disturbing pattern” in which entire families begin to receive threats
that even escalate into more murders.

In a statement, Amigos de las Mujeres also sharply criticized the US
federal government for its treatment of surviving members of Marisela
Escobedo’s family. A Ciudad Juarez mother who tirelessly protested the
murder of her daughter, Escobedo was gunned down in front of state
government offices in Chihuahua City last December. Shortly afterward, her
husband’s business was torched and her brother-in-law murdered.

Family members then sought refuge in the United States, but Marisela’s son
Juan Manuel Frayre Escobedo and brother Hector Escobedo Ortiz remain
locked up in an Otero County, New Mexico, immigration detention center.

The facility, Amigos de las Mujeres noted, was the subject of a recent
report from the American Civil Liberties Union that documented a host of
abuses. The group urged its sympathizers to contact their Congressional
representatives and lobby for the release of Marisela Escobedo’s relatives
from the immigration prison.

For nearly a decade, Amigos de las Mujeres has worked in support of
relatives of femicide victims in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua. And like
many advocates on both sides the border, group members have observed
violence against women and their advocates in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua
spiral upward with no let-up in sight.

According to a new report from COLEF, at least 1,192 women have been
murdered in Ciudad Juarez since 1993, with 442 of the homicides occurring
in the 12-year period from 1993 to 2005 when the city become known
internationally for the crimes committed against women. Of the earlier
victims, 58 remain unidentified, according to Dr. Julia Monarrez.

The lead researcher in the study, Monarrez has identified two main types
of gender violence in the city: domestic and marital violence, and a
second one marked by the serial murders of young, low-income women who are
kidnapped, tortured and mutilated by groups of “powerful men.”

In recent years, a third variant of violence, connected to organized crime
disputes, has added an “extra” deadly element to an already violent scene,
Monarrez told the Mexican press in a recent interview.

In one of the latest instances of criminal violence, an unidentified young
woman was shot to death firing squad-style along with four men in the
Barrio Alto neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez early on the morning of March 6.
Witnesses quoted in the local press described the victim unsuccessfully
begging for her life. On the same day, another woman was found possibly
beaten to death in the city’s conflict-ridden downtown zone.

The violence in Ciudad Juarez will receive heightened international
scrutiny this week, when members of the non-governmental Ciudad Juarez
Women’s Roundtable give talks in Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. The
European tour is part of a new campaign to protest the “simulation of the
Mexican state” in addressing gender violence, as well the Calderon
administration’s failure to fully comply with the 2009 Inter-American
Court of Human Rights sentence related to the murders of three young women
in Ciudad Juarez back in 2001.

Andrea Medina Rosas, Women’s Roundtable spokesperson, said hundreds of
national and international recommendations concerning gender violence have
been made to the Mexican government during the last two decades, including
some of which have been attended, but that “effective results” have been
lacking until now.

With additional sources in U.S. and Mexican news media.
Frontera NorteSur is made possible by reader contributions and a grant
from the McCune Charitable Foundation

Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Urgent message regarding Juarez violence

2011-03-06T20:38:00.001-06:00

By Kelly McKenzie/WLMJ
March 6, 2011

This is an urgent message for activists/advocates in relation to the violence in Mexico. According to confidential sources, a certain group in Mexico planned to carry out high-impact slayings in Juarez and other regions this year. The sources would not identify the group's members. The targets include activists (who represent any cause) and others. The high-impact crimes include more beheadings, massacres (to kill large groups of people), and murders of younger people and women. There are also dangerous members of the drug cartels in U.S. border communities who have remained under the radar but circulate freely in places like El Paso and Hudspeth counties in West Texas. These members are affiliated with groups involved in the high-impact crimes and are mingling with activists to blend in with regular people; some are relatives of activists. (end)

Canada conference on the femicides

2011-03-05T13:32:00.001-06:00

Next week!

Call of Juarez: The Cartel trailer by Ubisoft

2011-03-03T15:12:00.000-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/ubisoft#p/a/u/0/Uv7xALCqkno

Military U.S. and S. Korean arms found in Mexico according to document provided by WikiLeaks

2011-02-25T06:03:00.001-06:00

Special post by Camila Klein and Kelly McKenzie
Feb. 25, 2011

Lot from U.S. cache in El Salvador; Korean grenade,
Weapons used in attacks v. U.S. consulate & Televisa
U.S. diplomatic cable on Mexico from WikiLeaks reprinted below:

SUBJECT: MEXICO: TRACKING NARCO-GRENADES: Bruce Williamson, Principal Offficer, Consul General Monterrey, State. REASON: 1.4 (a), (b), (d)
¶1.(SBU)During recent months Mexican narco-traffickers have directed a series of grenade attacks directed against, inter alia, Mexican law enforcement and military facilities, civilian crowds, and U.S. consular installations. The escalation in the strength and power of the weapons used by the narco-traffickers
has not only cost lives, but has taken its toll in terms of the damage done to local civil society.
¶2.(S) AmConsulate General Monterrey's ATF Office, the ATF
Explosives Technology Branch, and AmEmbassy Mexico DAO have been working with Mexican law enforcement authorities to identify the origin of various grenades and other explosive devices recovered locally over the past few months, including the unexploded M26A2 fragmentation grenade hurled at the Consulate itself during the October 11, 2008 attack. Other ordnance recovered includes 21 grenades recovered by Mexican law enforcement on October 16, 2008 after a raid at a narco-warehouse in Guadalupe (a working class suburb of Monterrey), and twenty-five 40mm explosive projectiles, a U.S. M203 40mm grenade launcher, and three South Korean K400 fragmentation grenades recovered the same day in an abandoned armored vehicle that suspected narco-traffickers used to escape apprehension.
¶3.(S/NF) Local Mexican law enforcement has recovered a Grenade spoon and pull ring from an exploded hand grenade used in a January 6, 2009 attack on Televisa Monterrey, a Monterrey television station. Based upon ATF examination, it appears that the grenade used in the attack on the Consulate has the same lot number, and is of similar design and style, as the three of the grenades found at the narco-warehouse in Guadalupe. On January 7, 2009, the Mexican Army recovered 14 M-67 fragmentation grenades and 1 K400 fragmentation grenade in Durango City, Durango. Finally and perhaps most disturbing, on January 31, 2009 three men tossed a K-75 grenade into a night club near Pharr, Texas -- an East Texas border town --but the grenade did not explode. The attackers may have been targeting three off-duty police officers who were in the club at the time.
¶4. (S) The lot numbers of some of the grenades recovered, including the grenade used in the attack on Televisa, indicate that previously ordnance with these same lot numbers may have been sold by the USG to the El Salvadoran military in the early 1990s via the Foreign Military Sales program. We would like to thank AmEmbassy San Salvador for its ongoing efforts to query the Government of El Salvador as whether any of its stocks of grenades and other munitions have been diverted or are otherwise unaccounted for.
¶5.(SBU) AmConsulate Monterrey requests that Department instruct AmEmbassy Seoul to discreetly query the Korean government regarding the whereabouts, disposition, and the possibility of any missing stocks of South Korean-made: --- 40mm High Explosives Cartridges K200, with Lot numbers HWB95L615-012; HWB95L615-014; EC-87E615-061; EC-88G615-071, EC-84D610-096, EC-83H615-012, and EC-83H815-012. --- K400 Fragmentation Grenades, with Lot numbers EC-89E605-063, HEB96H605-033, HWB96H605-033, HWB96H-609-003,KG94DK400002-017, KG94D002-017, HWB89S605-063, ME183D, and HWB95K605-029. --- K402 Fragmentation Grenades, with Lot numbers HWB96H605-063 and HWB96H605-033.

MONTERREY 00000100 002 OF 002

--- K75 Fragmentation Grenade, with Lot numbers EC-85E605-031 and EC89E605-073.
¶6.(SBU) Any information as to the destination of this ordnance and to whom it may have been sold would be most appreciated. This information will be used in an U.S. ongoing criminal investigation. WILLIAMSON
# # #

WikiLeaks: U.S. document says violence against women in Mexico is a problem

2011-02-24T11:09:00.001-06:00

Special post by Camila Klein and Kelly McKenzie Feb. 23, 2011

WikiLeaks disclosed a U.S. government document from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico dated March 2009 about gender violence in Mexico.
In coordination with the blog's agreement, the document is produced here in its entirety.
Statistics on the number of solved homicides are from the Mexican government.
The embassy's report reflects its staff's observations regarding the situation of violence against women in Mexico.
----------------------------------------
VZCZCXRO1408

RR RUEHCD RUEHGD RUEHHO RUEHMC RUEHNG RUEHNL RUEHRD RUEHRS RUEHTM

DE RUEHME #0661/01 0650054

ZNR UUUUU ZZH

R 060054Z MAR 09

FM AMEMBASSY MEXICO

TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5476

INFO RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MEXICO 000661
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: N/A

TAGS: PGOV PHUM KWMN MX
SUBJECT: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN MEXICO REMAINS A PROBLEM
NOTWITHSTANDING GOVERNMENT EFFORTS, CAMPAIGNS
Â¶1. Summary. Violence against women in Mexico remains a
serious problem, common not only in the highly publicized
cases of Ciudad Juarez but in a number of other states.
While the Mexican Government has made a good faith effort to
strengthen efforts to combat violence against women, these
efforts have yet to register a major impact on the problem.
To turn the page on violence against women, Mexico needs to
promote a new culture of gender respect through education and
campaigns against discrimination based on gender; it also
needs to end impunity against abusers by meting out
appropriate punishments. As problems predominantly occur at
the local level, until Mexico develops state laws addressing
violence against women at the state level and similarly
disburses funding at that level, its efforts will continue to
be significantly hampered. End Summary.

Gender Violence Continues to Claims its Victims

Â¶2. Ciudad Juarez often captures public and media attention
for the high numbers of female homicide victims over the last
15 years. On a positive note, though, Ciudad Juarez has made
progress on the legal side addressing this issue having
either closed or indicted suspects in over 75 percent of the
cases of femicide. Meanwhile, violence against women has
proven a nationwide problem that touches the majority of
Mexican women. According to the NGO National Citizen
Femicide Observatory, seven out of every ten women have
suffered abusive treatment at some time in their lives. This
NGO also reports that over 1,014 girls, teenagers, and women
were murdered from January 2007 through July 31, 2008; over
42 percent of whom were between 21 and 40 years old. The

Deputy Attorney General for Chihuahua, maintains that over 80
percent of the women killed in Ciudad Juarez -- outside of
narco-related violence ) were victims of domestic violence.
Most of the reported cases were registered in 13 states and
the Federal District, including Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon,
Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Mexico City, State of Mexico,
Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Tlaxcala, Tabasco and Yucatan,
demonstrating that gender violence is not confined to
specific geographic areas.

GOM Efforts a Start, But Not Enough

Â¶3. In February 2007, President Calderon signed into law the
General Law on Women's Access to a Life Free of Violence
which represents the government's first significant attempt
to address the problem of violence against women from more of
a comprehensive approach. The law identifies principles and
modalities consistent with equality and non-discrimination
that should serve as a foundation for women to enjoy a life
free of violence. Recognizing the uneven attention this
problem receives across the country it aims to better
coordinate the efforts of government offices at the federal,
state, and municipal level to prevent, punish and eradicate
violence against women. However, while the law defines as
crimes such offenses as psychological and physical violence
against women as well as the plundering of patrimonial goods
and money regardless of age or marital status, it does not
establish specific sentencing guidelines. As such, the law
is practically unenforceable. (Note: The Federal Law
Pertaining to the Responsibilities of Public Officials
establishes penalties for violence against women but by
definition its purview is rather circumscribed. End Note.)

Â¶4. Further, the law passed by the Mexican Congress in 2007
applies on the federal level when in fact almost all abuses
occur at the state level. While 24 states have already
passed their own version of the law )- and had the foresight
to include sentencing guidelines -- by October 2008, the
states don't have access to the kinds of resources made
available on a federal level. Whereas, Congress allocated
approximately $163 million to implement the law at the
federal level, there is little evidence much, if any, of that
money has trickled down to the states where the abuses are
primarily occurring. Meanwhile, as complaints of violence
against women increase, authorities note that out of every 10
women who register a complaint between 6 and 8 back out for
fear of reprisals or insufficient resources to carry their
case forward. On the prosecutorial side, Mexican legal
experts report that the number of cases successfully brought
to trial and prosecuted remain disappointing, in part because
societal attitudes continue to complicate efforts by the
prosecution to build strong cases.

Â¶5. The National Institute for Women (INMUJERES), a public
institution established in 2001 to foster equality between
the sexes and promote respect for and prevent violence
against women, assumes a key role in the government's efforts
to change attitudes. (Separately, each of Mexico's 31 states
plus the Federal District has its own state women's
institution.) Its campaign "Men Against Violence"
represented the government's first attempt to address the

MEXICO 00000661 002 OF 002

cultural attitudes of men in tackling the gender violence
problem. It urges men to commit themselves to healthy,
responsible and non-violent relationships, and looks to shape
men's values to discourage violence and discrimination
against women. Since its creation, INMUJERES has provided
training on gender equality to 1,560 personnel in the
Judicial Branch, held six different meetings with state and
municipal authorities to create state-level organizations
that address and attend to violence against women,
implemented a program called Model of Gender Equity for
private companies and public institutions to review their
practices and incorporate a gender perspective and is
preparing a national survey on the problem that will be
released in October 2009. INMUJERES also is working with
governmental institutions and NGOs to achieve this year's
goal of signing an agreement with the Supreme Court to
provide training to public prosecutors, since many times they
are unaware of the existence of the law, and to develop
programs to provide protection to Mexican women living abroad
that suffer violence. Representative of INMUJERES have
expressed a desire to expand bilateral cooperation with the
U.S. on official campaigns against trafficking in persons in
part by bringing in special speakers.

Â¶6. INMUJERES does not lack for resources. In 2009, it
received approximately $700 million to carry out programs
throughout all of Mexico. Some experts maintain, however,
that the organization is still trying to find its identity
and its sense of mission. In the meantime, it does not
appear that funds are being spent down according to some
overarching plan. Instead they are managed from Mexico City
and are not as of yet being widely disbursed at the local
level as part of an effort to address attitudes at the
grassroots level.

Civil Society Seeking Greater GOM Commitment

Â¶7. A number of human rights NGOs criticize the government's
efforts thus far as insufficient for dealing with the gender
violence problem and have taken up initiatives on their own
to draw greater attention to the problem of violence against
and pressure the government to do more. Last November, a
group of NGOs consisting of more than 500 members embarked
on a week-long "No More Violence Against Women" march from
Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua to San Cristobal de la Casas,
Chiapas calling for an end to violence against women in
Mexico and demanding that the Federal Government resolve
pending cases, particularly those involving femicides --
gender motivated killings of women. Some activists described
this march as merely the first phase of a new, more energetic
campaign to pressure the government to take greater
initiative on this issue. NGOs also have criticized the

Gender Violence Law for not establishing specific enough
punishments for perpetrators of violence against women.
Women's rights NGOs point to in the continued high incidence
of femicides, in particular, as evidence that the GOM is not
as committed as it should be to fighting the problem.

Comment

Â¶8. Cultural attitudes that often times cast Mexican women as
objects to be used and discarded are deeply ingrained in
Mexican society. In fact some experts actually believe that
violence against women is on the rise, in part due to women's
advances in social, intellectual, economic and political
affairs that threaten some men who are afraid of being left
behind or pushed aside. For Mexico to turn the page on
violence against women, these attitudes must be transformed.
while Mexico has taken some initial steps toward treating the
gender violence problem by adopting a federal law and
developing a number of education campaigns, much more needs
to be done at the local level. Campaigns promoting greater
gender respect must be broadly dispersed at a grassroots
level across Mexico. Law enforcement officials, including
police, prosecutors, and judges, need to be more widely
trained in the implementation of state laws on violence
against women, provided they exist. Lastly, aggressors need
to know that they will be punished when they commit an act of
violence against women, either inside or outside the home --
something that is not immediately apparent given low
prosecution and conviction rates for violence against women.
# # #
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Officials investigate murder of poet and activist in Juarez, Mexico

2011-01-14T08:55:00.001-06:00

Another Juarez femicide activist is slain

Copyright © 2011 by WLM Journal

WLM Journal - Jan. 12, 2011
By Kelly McKenzie

The activist and poet who inspired the slogan "ni una mas" was murdered in Juarez, Chihuahua, and the investigation appears mired in controversy and contradictions.

Ni una mas stands for not one more murder.

Susana Chavez, 36, was killed Jan. 5. Her body was found on Three Kings Day (Jan. 6) at 12:30 a.m.

Three teenage boys who are in police custody are the suspects.
The suspects authorities said confessed to killing Chavez are Sergio Cardenas De la O, 17, Aaron Acevedo Martínez, 17, and Carlos Ramírez Muñoz, also 17.

Other activists complained that the authorities delayed in identifying the victim to avoid another controversy, such as the assassination in December of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who was killed by gunfire in front of the governor's palace in Chihuahua City.

Escobedo was seeking justice in the case of her daughter's slaying. The police have not detained her killer.

Officials said one of Chavez's face was covered with duct tape and she died from suffocation. Her left hand was severed.

Three teenage boys allegedly told the authorities that they killed Chavez after drinking and dancing at Cardenas' home.

He allegedly said they told Chavez they were members of the Aztecas gang (enforcers for the Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel), and that she claimed she was a police officer and was going to turn them in.

The suspects said Acevedo, Ramirez and Cardenas took Chavez inside the shower and wrapped her face with duct tape. Then, Cardenas and Acevedo cut off her left hand and dumped her body on a street.

Officials said they found the severed hand in Cardenas' home.

Mexican and U.S. officials have linked the Aztecas and other gangs in Juarez to the murders of women in Juarez.

Officials have not said whether the suspects were in fact Aztecas or were seeking to join the gang.

The Mexican National Commission for Human Rights has asked for a thorough investigation of Chavez's death.

Copyright 2011, WLM Journal

Suspect in shooting that injured US Rep Giffords and killed 5 others may be on Internet

2011-01-08T16:43:00.000-06:00

Link to suspect's possible YouTube videos

http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/u/0/7uRjwPWaxiY

This was a national tragedy.
- Kelly McKenzie

Activist mother murdered in front of Chihuahua City state building; her death was caught on camera

2010-12-17T13:26:00.000-06:00

Sergio Rafael Barraza, the suspected killer of Rubi's daughter, confessed to the 2008 murder and apologized publicly. The girl's mother found him in Zacatecas and notified the police. He was detained but escaped and allegedly had joined the Zetas. Rubi's mother was recorded by security cameras in front of the Chihuahua state building last night. - Kelly McKenzie

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_16878414?source=most_viewed

Activist "Rubi's Mom" killed in Chihuahua City

by Daniel Borunda \ El Paso Times

Posted: 12/16/2010 11:24:15 PM MST

A mother on a quest to find her daughter's killer was fatally shot Thursday night in front of the state capitol in Chihuahua City.

Better known simply as "Rubi's mom," Maricela Escobedo was an activist and self-made investigator seeking to bring to justice the person who killed her daughter, Rubi Marisol Freyre Escobedo, in [Juarez].

State prosecutor Jorge Gonzalez Nicolas late Thursday confirmed the homicide of Escobedo, who was shot while collecting signatures in front of the state capitol.

Gonzalez said security cameras filmed the attack and there were also four witnesses.

Gonzalez said Escobedo exchanged words with a man, who then pulled out a handgun. She was shot in the head while trying to run to safety.

The prosecutor said investigators were following several leads and had several clues, including a single 9 mm bullet casing found next to a cigarette butt the shooter had in his mouth moments earlier.

Escobedo had been on a quest to bring her daughter's killer to justice after a state tribunal cleared a man arrested in Rubi Freyre's death.

"She had given us important information she had found herself about the tragic death of her daughter," Gonzalez said. "She provided important information to prosecutors and federal police from the investigations she was doing and that were being supported by prosecutors."

Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.

AOL News report: Official alleges organ-trafficking by crime network

2010-12-15T21:02:00.000-06:00

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/15/report-kosovan-leader-involved-in-organ-drug-trafficking/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7C10%7Clink2%7C31211

Documentary: "Border Echoes" reveals systematic murders of women in Juarez, Mexico

2010-12-11T12:35:00.003-06:00

Mexican officials and others attend Dec. 10 ceremony at the site where bodies of 8 young women's bodies were found in November 2001. A memorial in honor of the "cotton field" victims will be constructed there. A year ago, the InterAmerican Court for Human Rights instructed the Mexican government to erect such a monument and to reinvestigate the 2001 case.The tribunal issued these and other instructions related to the notorious femicides. So far, the only one in progress is the monument. Photo courtesyof El Mexicano.

http://vimeo.com/10939717

New books

"The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women" - Update in 2011

"Cosecha de Mujeres" - Actualizado en 2011
"Mexican Roulette: Last Cartel Standing" - Release in 2011
"La Ruleta Mexicana: El Cartel Restante" - Estreno en 2011

Film

"Border Echoes" - documentary film by California producer Lorena Mendez-Quiroga

International Femicides Conference in Juarez, Mexico today

2010-11-29T16:01:00.000-06:00

Audio streamed at http://www.radiofeminista.net
Read story in today's El Paso Times at www.elpasotimes.com

NYT review on Ed Vulliamy's book "Amexica"

2010-11-14T08:47:00.001-06:00

Recommended reading

I met Ed several years ago and he is a great guy who really does care about what is going on at the U.S.-Mexico border. Sandra Jordan is another courageous journalist from Ed's part of the world who has reported on the unprecedented violence. I compare them to Kent Paterson, another great colleague at Frontera Norte-Sur in the United States, who has written extensively about the border and Mexico, and to John Burnett, who reports for National Public Radio. (Diana Washington Valdez)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/books/review/Jacoby-t.html

Las Americas names 2010 Border Heroes

2010-11-06T08:26:00.000-06:00

Announcement: Las Americas Border Heroes Fundraiser

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center will have its 2010 Border Heroes Awards at 7 p.m. Nov. 6 at Mercado Mayapan, 2101 Myrtle. This year's honorees are the late Esther Chavez Cano of Casa Amiga, the late Lorenzo Guel of Taller Colibri, and author and journalist Diana Washington Valdez of the El Paso Times. The event includes a dinner and silent auction of artwork by Hal Marcus. The event also serves as a fundraiser for the nonprofit organization.

Prominent members of the legal community and the religious and non-profit community in El Paso have answered the call and will attend the event. State Senator-elect Jose Rodriguez, El Paso Attorney Enrique Moreno and the accounting firm of White, Samaniego and Campbell are underwriting the fundraising event.

The following groups are also expected at the event: Rep. Marisa Marquez, Sheriff Ricard Wiles, Temple Mt. Sinai, St. Pius X Church, Daughters of Charity, Border Network for Human Rights, Judge Linda Chew, Judge Tom Spieczny, Judge Tony Rodriguez, and others. Two Las Americas clients, one asylum grantee from Cameroun and a victim of crime from Mexico, will tell their stories.

But we still need your support. Please consider purchasing a ticket or a table and giving to a worthy cause.

More about Las Americas:

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center is a 23-year-old, home-grown non-profit dedicated to serving the legal needs of the most vulnerable among immigrants: Asylum seekers, battered women and abandoned children.

Since 1987, Las Americas, which is certified by the Board of Immigration Appeals, has provided representation to more than 9,000 low-income immigrants in El Paso, some coming from as far as Burma and Cameroun.

Las Americas strives to be an efficient organization, relying on volunteer attorneys and helpers for a lot of its cases. Donations are also put to good use -86 cents out of every donated dollar goes toward services, an extraordinary ratio by non-profit standards.

Information: louiegilot@las-americas.org

Sources: www.las-americas.org; El Paso Times.

EPCC Hispanic Heritage Celebration 2010: Honoring the late Ruben Salazar

2010-10-08T17:02:00.001-05:00

The 9th Annual Hispanic Heritage Celebration Oct. 6-8, presented by the El Paso Community College Diversity Programs/Hispanic Heritage Committee. Theme: A Century of History, A Millennium of Promise."

Recipients of the 2010 Hispanic Heritage Awards:

- Special Recognition Award to Daniel Villanueva, co-founder of Univision network, and a former professional football player.
- Pedro Villagrana, former veteran TV reporter with KINT-TV in El Paso, Texas; past recipient of the Ruben Salazar Award.
- Joe Olvera, author, columnist and former KDBC-TV, El Paso Times and El Paso Herald-Post reporter in El Paso, Texas; past recipient of the Ruben Salazar Award.
- Diana Washington Valdez,author, El Paso Times reporter, EPCC instructor; past recipient of the Ruben Salazar Award.

Past recipients include Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyaishma; Dr. Manuel de la Rosa, founding dean of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine; and business entrepreneur Richard Castro, McDonald's franchise owner/operator.

El Paso Times: U.S. and Mexico organizations document human rights violations by security forces

2010-10-06T08:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.elpasotimes.com/juarez/ci_16257874

In addition to the report cited in the article, Amnesty International is calling on Mexico's government to abide by the directions of the Inter-American Court for Human Rights in the case involving two indigenous women in the state of Guerrero who accused soldiers of raping and torturing them in 2002. - Web staff.

FNS: Woman of Steel Resisting Femicide in Juarez, Mexico

2010-09-30T16:13:00.000-05:00

(FNS Editor’s Note: The following piece is the first of two articles on

resisting gender violence in the borderlands and the Americas.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news

Cnter for Latin American and Border Studies, New Mexico State University,
Las Cruces, New Mexico. For a free electronic subscription
email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu)

September 30, 2010

Human Rights News

Resisting Femicide: Ciudad Juarez’s Woman of Steel

Evangelina Arce is a woman of steel. A first glance at the diminutive and
low-key woman might give a different impression, but don’t be fooled. For
more than 12 long years, Dona Eva has searched for her missing daughter,
Silvia Arce, who vanished in the urban jungle of Ciudad Juarez one night
back in March of 1998. A friend of Silvia’s, dancer Griselda Mares, also
fell from the face of the earth the same evening.

Since the disappearance of the 29-year-old mother of three, Dona Eva has
suffered the violent loss of a grandson and the murder of a son-in-law.
She has been physically assaulted and threatened. Death threats even
forced Dona Eva to abandon Ciudad Juarez for a spell. Yet like other
mothers of missing young women, Dona Eva perseveres in her search for the
truth about the fate of a loved one.

“It wasn’t a toy, it was a daughter we lost,” Dona Eva told a crowd
gathered at New Mexico State University this month. “We are going to
continue in the struggle.”

Dona Eva’s story begins in the late winter, the time of year in the
borderland when the wind howls dust and the days alternate between the
last bitter lashes of winter and the first warm hugs of spring. With three
children to support, Silvia Arce was earning an income selling jewelry and
cosmetics to the dancers working the old Pachangas nightclub.

One day, Silvia’s husband Octavio told Dona Eva that his wife had failed
to come home. Immediately, Dona Eva began knocking on doors and looking
for answers. Pounding the pavement, she went to the state police to report
the disappearance, pressed the employees of the Pachangas bar and scoured
the vast underworld of Ciudad Juarez.

By her own account, the police gave her the run-around, Silvia’s
co-workers clammed up out of fear for their lives and an odd cast of
characters befitting a Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez film treated
the distraught mother with a mixture of indifference, helplessness and
sarcasm.

“Pure garbage,” was how Dona Eva assessed the law enforcement response.
“There is no serious investigation, or an investigation that would lead to
a path in finding Silvia.”

Little by little, Dona Eva sniffed out a trail which led to at least three
men, including two presumed federal police officers. Although the
authorities know their identities, the suspects have not been called to
testify, Dona Eva told Frontera NorteSur. “I’ve suffered many threats,
because I’ve taken on the work the agents do,” she said.

Dona Eva’s saga was documented by Mexico’s National Human Rights
Commission many years ago.

Long suspicious of Octavio’s possible involvement in the disappearance of
his wife, Dona Eva said the man should be forced to testify. To this day,
the longtime resident of Ciudad Juarez carries around a picture of Silvia,
Octavio and Esmeralda, the couple’s oldest child, at the little girl’s
baptism. As Silvia’s big eyes gazed out from under a curly hairdo, the
camera captured Octavio giving a squinting and almost disdainful look to
his wife and child.

Dona Eva ended up with the kids. In 2006 Silvia’s son Angel, now 18 years
old, was gunned down in the mean streets of Ciudad Juarez. To Dona Eva,
Angel was like a son. Tears welled up in the grandmother’s eyes when she
mentioned the ill-fated young man during her New Mexico State talk. A few
months ago, another one of Dona Eva’s son-in-laws was likewise slain in
the carnage that’s suffocated Ciudad Juarez in a blanket of blood.

In 1998, Dona Eva helped found Voces sin Eco, or Voices without Echo, the
victims’ relatives group that plastered Ciudad Juarez with the now-iconic
pink and black crosses. Taking to the streets, the relatives and their
supporters tried to get a seemingly blind world to open its eyes. For
years, the face of Silvia Arce was a common one on the posters and
placards hoisted up during the many anti-femicide demonstrations that
broke out in Mexico and across the world during the latter half of the
1990s and early part of this decade.

Putting Mexico on the defensive in the court of world public opinion, the
mass movement peaked with a 2004 V-Day march that drew several thousand
people including Hollywood celebrities Jane Fonda and Sally Field into the
streets of Ciudad Juarez. Joining in the march was newly-appointed Mexican
special federal prosecutor Maria Lopez Urbina, who vowed to roll up her
sleeves and bring justice to Silvia Arce and so many others.

A few months prior to the V-Day action, in December 2003, Evangelina Arce
and her Mexican lawyers filed a complaint against their government in the
Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington, D.C.

Still pending, the case accuses Mexico of violating the Inter-American
Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence
against Women, the Inter-American Convention on the Forced Disappearance
of Persons and the American Convention on Human Rights.

According to the IACHR complaint, Silvia’s disappearance followed by a
botched police investigation caused emotional and physical harm, family
break-up and constant harassment and threats.

Responding to the complaint, the administration of then-President Vicente
Fox contended the mass disappearance and murder of women in Ciudad Juarez
had complex sociological roots that could not be answered “merely by the
police investigation and the administration of justice.”

The Fox administration listed a number of actions which had been taken at
both the state and federal levels to tackle gender violence, including the
creation of the Chihuahua Women’s Institute and the establishment of the
Special Commission for the Prevention and Elimination of Violence against
Women in Ciudad Juarez headed by Guadalupe Morfin.

In its IACHR response, the Mexican government said it was reaching out to
the FBI for technical assistance, while the Chihuahua state government’s
own special prosecutor for women’s homicides was getting down to police
work and helping victims’ families. Government agencies, the Fox
administration insisted, had aided Dona Eva’s family with a two-month
“grocery allowance” and other financial help, and assisted with
psychological and medical support.

What’s more, Special Prosecutor Lopez Urbina had identified about 100
“dismissed” officials from the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office
who were facing legal sanctions for irregularities in investigating cases
of murdered and missing women.

Silvia Arce’s case was turned over to the federal attorney general’s elite
SIEDO anti-organized crime squad in 2004, because of the suspected
involvement of more than three suspects, the Fox government told the
IACHR.

The Mexican State’s response to Dona Eva’s IACHR complaint illustrates its
stance on other relatives’ cases in both the Washington commission and
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica.

More than five years later, no official named by Lopez Urbina has been
punished. After the Fox administration left office, the old Morfin
Commission was dissolved into a national commission with a charge
extending far beyond Ciudad Juarez. Two years ago, the SIEDO unit charged
with resolving Silvia Arce’s disappearance was rocked by scandal when
dozens of officials were arrested or sacked for supposedly aiding drug
traffickers.

While Silvia Arce’s case awaits disposition in Washington, Dona Eva has
word the National Human Rights Commission, which makes non-binding
recommendations to Mexican authorities, wants to take another look at the
case.

On September 12, 2010, the El Paso Times reported that 1,000 women had been
murdered in Ciudad Juarez between 1993 and September 6, 2010. Rapists,
robbers, domestic abusers, and narco death squad executioners all took
their toll.

Like Silvia Arce and Griselda Mares, scores- perhaps hundreds- of other
women remain missing, but it is not known for sure because no systematic
registry of disappeared women-or men-exists.

Nearly one year after the Inter-American Court ruled against Mexico in the
well-known Ciudad Juarez cotton field femicide case, the government still
has not fully complied with a court ruling to effectively publicize cases
of missing women on the Internet. The Office of the Chihuahua State
Attorney General does have some information on its website, but
the list is not complete and doesn’t include photos of all the 28 women
listed as missing since 1993.

According to the web page, the Chihuahua state law enforcement authorities
have resolved 32 reports of missing women. Of the cases solved, 16 women
were found alive and 16 later determined dead. The deceased women were
identified largely through the efforts of the Argentine Anthropological
Forensic Team brought in several years ago under pressure from victims’
relatives and women’s activists. It remains to be seen if the new state
administration that takes office in early October will expand or even keep
the current web page.

More than twelve years after Silvia Arce vanished into the depths of a
troubled border city, Ciudad Juarez is a place where the crackle of
gunshots, the rattle of roving firing squads, the boom of the occasional
car bomb and the whir of the ubiquitous ambulance strum the rhythm of
daily life. Amid it all, people get up every day to go to work or school
in a brave attempt to live some semblance of normalcy.

The city’s residents, Dona Eva said, must be very vigilant about where
they walk since flying bullets can bring about an unexpected end. “They
even enter homes and kill people,” she lamented.

Dona Eva and other members of Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for
Our Daughters), a group of relatives of femicide victims and missing young
women from Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez, continue searching for their
loved ones. Lately, they’ve enlisted the aid of specially-trained dogs to
search homes and properties where the remains of disappeared women might
be concealed. Since 1999, numerous mass graves containing both men and
women have been unearthed in and around Ciudad Juarez.

More than a decade after her life was turned upside down, the bereaved but
determined Dona Eva rolls on in her quest for the truth about Silvia. “I’m
not going to give up," she vowed. "I’m going to move ahead until I find
her.”

Additional Sources: El Paso Times, March 23 and September 12, 2010.
Cimacnoticias.com, June 22, 2010. Article by Gladis Torres.

El Paso Times: Chihuahua police look into ritualistic slayings

2010-09-27T12:23:00.000-05:00

See story at
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16181246

Narco News: The true dimensions of the drug wars and drug trade

2010-09-23T06:40:00.000-05:00

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/4122/telling-whole-truth-about-drug-war

Diana Washington Valdez blog: Debut of Border Echoes film DVD on the murders of ...

2010-09-22T10:35:00.000-05:00

Diana Washington Valdez blog: Debut of Border Echoes film DVD on the murders of ...: "http://www.borderechoes.com/"

Debut of Border Echoes film DVD on the murders of women in Juarez, Mexico

2010-09-22T10:26:00.001-05:00

http://www.borderechoes.com/

ATF's Operation Gun Runner at risk due to interagency squabbles, says MSNBC

2010-09-22T09:45:00.000-05:00

MSNBC: "The report also faults a timid investigative strategy by ATF that concentrates on low level “straw purchasers” of illegal firearms rather than high level weapons trafficking organizations."
See story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39282887/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

El Paso Times: Retaliation for boy kidnapping is behind the latest violence

2010-09-11T11:27:00.001-05:00

[Blog Team: "Boy" could be a reference to a cartel member who is nicknamed "El Nino," or the Boy, according to alleged cartels' back-and-forth messages.]

See story at
www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16047248

By Aileen B Flores & Adriana M. Chavez/El Paso Times

JUAREZ - The slayings of 25 people -- including women and teenagers -- in a series of multiple killings Thursday night was a systematic attack in apparent retaliation for a kidnapping of child, officials said Friday.

Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said the wave of killings was connected to messages left on two walls allegedly by the Juárez drug cartel threatening retaliation against the Sinaloa drug cartel for the kidnapping.
In a matter of hours Thursday, deliberate and brutal slayings took place in different neighborhoods in the city.
"Yesterday was a day of extreme violence, especially multiple murders, where criminal groups sent several messages and threats that have to be analyzed (by authorities)," Reyes Ferriz said in a news statement.
José Ramón Salinas, a Mexican federal police spokesman, said authorities are aware of the messages, but he declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation.
One message written on a wall read: "Be men, return the boy or else you will get into a war that you will regret. Att. Diego"
Its not known who was kidnapped or when it took place.
Even for Juárez, which has been in the clutches of a drug war that has claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people since 2008, the attacks Thursday were shocking.
The victims ranged in age from 15 to 60.
###

1,000 women murdered in Juarez, Mexico since 1993, 25 people killed in 24 hours

2010-09-10T19:17:00.004-05:00

See http://www.elpasotimes.com/ for story on alarming wave of violence in Juarez, Mexico.

A sad commentary: The femicides in Juarez, Mexico have reached and surpassed 1,000 since 1993. The gritty bordertown continues to be an unquenchable killing field for men, women and children. - J.J. Schwartz

Previous victim was only 14 years old. She was one of many girls killed during the past five years. (Photo courtesy of M.P.A.)

El Paso Times: article on Mexican drug cartel wars

2010-09-05T08:00:00.002-05:00

"7 cartel clashes at root of drug war"

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_15994354

Mexican killing fields claim 28,353 lives

2010-08-31T13:50:00.003-05:00

Copyright@2010 Kelly McKenzie

Dispatch from the U.S.-Mexico border
By Kelly McKenzie - 09012010

At least 80 percent of Mexico’s drug-related homicides were concentrated in several regions of the country.

The Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman cartel is fighting on four different fronts, and its battles with four other Mexican cartels have left 19,097 people dead.

La Familia cartel and its battle against two other groups claimed 1,800 homicides.

As of July 30, the government reports that 28,353 people have died in drug-related violence since the president announced the crackdown against drug-traffickers.

###

Congo: Rape capital of the world due to conflict over minerals for electronics

2010-08-26T19:17:00.001-05:00

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/as-many-as-200-women-babies-gang-raped-in-congo/19605217

Mexican Revolution and Independence writers wanted

2010-08-23T10:58:00.004-05:00

Photo: Mexican revolutionaries Francisco "Pancho" Villa (left) and Emiliano Zapata.

Call for submissions/www.wingedlionmedia.com:
For anthology on the 200th anniversary of the Mexican War of Independence and the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution: "Mexico 2010: Reflections on the Destiny of a Nation."

Seeking, in English or Spanish, essays, short stories, poems, or other writings.
Due: Sept. 30, 2010
Contact us for details at
info@wingedlionmedia.com

Convocatoria para trabajos literarios:
Para la antología del Bicentenario de la Guerra de la Independiencia de México y el Centenario de la Revolución Mexicana: México 2010: Reflexiones sobre el Destino de una Nación.

Solicitamos, en inglés o español, la entrega de ensayos, cuentos cortos, poemas u otro tipo de escritos y composiciones.

Fecha límite: 10 de septiembre del 2010.
Para mayores detalles, comuníquense a info@wingedlionmedia.com

FBI border investigations

2010-08-20T19:02:00.003-05:00

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/august10/border_080210.html

Fox: Mexico is dangerous for Journalists

2010-08-18T16:11:00.003-05:00

Article by Matt Sanchez - Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/18/mexico-journalists-increasingly-enda

Evaristo Ortega Zárate, a journalist in Veracruz, Mexico, was an ace at reporting details. He covered rival drug traffickers, criticized the inaction of local authorities and investigated politicians. Thanks to his efforts, his paper, Espacio, grew from a local weekly to a statewide presence.

But the focus of Ortega's writing changed this year. “They’ve arrested us,” he wrote in a desperate text message. “They have made us get into a police car.”

And those were the last words he wrote. Like dozens of other Mexican journalists in recent years, Evaristo Ortega Zárate simply vanished.

The life of a journalist has never been easy in Mexico, a country noted for its one-party rule, corruption and lawlessness. But in recent years, since President Felipe Calderon challenged the control of drug cartels that “sought to rule the nation,” practicing journalism has become a deadly occupation.

The numbers vary according to the source, but roughly 70 journalists, photographers, editors and producers have been killed in the last decade in Mexico, in what Reporters Without Borders calls, "the Western Hemisphere's deadliest country for the media."

The deadliest place in the world to get a quote remains Iraq, where 140 journalists have been killed since 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit that tracks violence against journalists worldwide.

But in many ways the streak of violence south of the Rio Grande is even more disturbing. At the height of the war in Iraq, journalists were often killed in sporadic crossfire, homicide bombings and inconclusive murders. And the number of journalists who have been killed has plummeted – from 32 in 2007 to four last year – as the war has wound down.

But in Mexico, the violence is almost never random. Druglords meticulously target journalists for execution, and the method is often very personal. Journalists have had their throats slashed and their bodies dissolved in acid; they've been dismembered and tortured by having a message carved into their bodies; they've been set on fire and they've been buried alive, head first.

Even the bullet to the head has been anything but straightforward: The body of reporter José Bladimir Antuna García's had a note attached to it that read: “This happened to me for giving information to the military and writing what I shouldn't have. Check the texts of your articles well before publishing them. Yours faithfully, Bladimir." It is not known whether Bladimir himself was forced to write the words before he died.

The climate of fear extends to reporters north of the border, as well. El Paso Times reporter Diana Washington Valdez routinely visited Juarez City, just on the other side of the Rio Grande. But she says, “I had to stop going. I just won’t go back.”

In April, she said, “I received a message, recommending that I should stop writing about drug-trafficking.

“Because of all the chaos and mayhem, I’m becoming too recognizable as a journalist."

Separated from El Paso by a small creek roughly the length of a football field, drug traffickers in Juarez City have commandeered radio stations to issue warnings to the press: "Do not mess with us. Do not arrive at the scene of the crime when we are still there.”

The warnings are being taken seriously. "We're seeing more auto-censorship among members of the media in Mexico,” said Carlos Lauria, a CPJ analyst.

Auto-censorship is common in Afghanistan, a country that has known war for decades and one in which freedom of the press is a relatively new concept. But Afghanistan actually ranks low among reporter-averse countries -- over the last 20 years, "only" 22 journalists have been killed there, including nine in 2001, the year American forces routed the Taliban.

Precautions are prudent in a nation that has known generational war, but now they are a reality in Mexico, right across America's southern border.

Some Mexican cartel members are seeking to control their image, and they have even kidnapped journalists to barter for television air-time. And the threat to reporters doesn't come only from the lawbreakers. The lawmakers pose problems, as well.

Of the 244 assaults on journalists, 65 percent came from public officials, according to Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa.

And the threat may not be contained south of the Rio Grande.

“On this side of the border, there’s a constant flow of intelligence and counter-intelligence,” Valdez said. “We know from our sources that some criminal activities are being coordinated from El Paso.”

While the journalists who were interviewed for this article insisted that they want to maintain their professional integrity, they say they are necessarily concerned that poking or prodding the wrong person may not be worth the risk.

There is “no magic solution for stopping the violence of the cartels or to protect freedom of the press,” Carlos Lauria said.

###

Mexico drug violence toll higher than previously reported

2010-08-05T11:22:00.003-05:00

CISEN director reports a higher number for victims of the Mexican drug wars

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_15679980

Diana Washington Valdez featured in Global Journalist radio interview today

Juarez car bombing kills federal agent, injures journalist

2010-07-16T20:34:00.002-05:00

See video link and more at www.journalistsforjustice.wordpress.com

News site about killing fields around the world

2010-07-05T16:45:00.003-05:00

http://journalistsforjustice.wordpress.com

Juarez child killer wanted in California for girl's murder in 1983

2010-06-18T12:10:00.002-05:00

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15319463?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.com