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HispanicVista Guest Columnists
Historic Femicide Trial Gets
Underway
FNS Special Report
May 4, 2009
Thousands of miles and a continent away, it’s a long haul from
Juarez
led Benita Monarrez, Irma Monreal and Josefina
Gonzalez. Mothers of
murder victims, the three women
from the Mexican border city pressed their
case last week
against the Mexican government as the Inter-American Court
of
Human Rights opened a milestone trial in Santiago, Chile.
Marking the first time the Organization of American States’
court has
heard a Mexican femicide case, the historic legal
proceeding centers on
the slayings of three young women who
were found with five other female
victims in a
Esmeralda Herrera
Monreal, 14, Laura Berenice Ramos Monarrez, 17, and
Claudia
Ivette Gonzalez, 20, all went missing between September 25 and
October 29, 2001.
Counting only two months in
disappearance, Herrera was a domestic worker employed by Mitla
Caballero.
A high school student, Ramos also worked for the
Fogueiras restaurant. An
assembly-line worker for the
US-owned Lear Corporation, Gonzalez was
turned away at the
plant gate because she was a few minutes late and then
vanished. Relatives contend the disappearances and subsequent
murders of
their loved ones were never truly investigated or
punished by the Mexican
government.
For example,
Benita Monarrez has stated that two investigators from the
personally knew two young men, “El Gato” and “El Perico” who
appeared in a
previous photo taken with Laura Berenice Ramos.
When pressed to explain
their relationship to the mysterious
pair, the law enforcement officials
clammed up, Monarrez has
asserted.
“This is the case to show the many failings
there have been by the Mexican
government,” said Maureen
Meyer, program associate for the non-profit
Washington Office
on Latin America (WOLA), a group which supports victims’
relatives. Meyer told Frontera NorteSur that the
could set a
precedent for other femicide cases, including sex-related
homicide cases from 1993 or 1994 that are now falling into legal
oblivion
because of Mexican statutes of limitations.
Mexican, US and European human rights activists are throwing
their support
behind the mothers involved in the
organizations,
Dignity called the
femicide victims not only in
the
The Long Road to
Many irregularities marked the
Mexican government’s response to the
disappearance of the
three young women, who vanished along with numerous
others in
both
disappearances
followed a pattern of young, low-income women suddenly
disappearing in the northern Mexican state since at least the
early 1990s.
Several suspects were investigated or arrested
in the cotton field
slayings, but human rights activists and
other observers widely criticized
government legal cases as
lacking any shred of credibility.
The grisly discoveries
of the eight cotton field victims on November 6 and
7, 2001,
set in motion a chain of events that culminated in the
Gonzalez
filed a complaint with the Washington-based Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) that charged the Mexican
government
with committing human rights violations and
denying justice in the cases
of their daughters.
After
finally determining that the Mexican government never provided
an
adequate response to the petitioners, the IACHR pursued
the next step in
the OAS human rights system and referred the
case to the
Court
cotton
field case based on the Mexican government’s alleged violations
of
the American Convention on Human Rights and the
Inter-American Convention
on the Prevention, Punishment and
Eradication of Violence against Women
(Convention of Belem Do
Para), international agreements that uphold
popular access to
the justice system and the right of women to live
without
violence. Under the jurisdiction of the
Last year,
documents requested by the
from the legal body.
The mothers seek
reparations of damages from the Mexican government, the
launching of a serious murder investigation and the dismissal
and
sanctioning of officials involved in allegedly botching
their daughters’
cases, among other remedies.
Showdown
in
On April 28
and 29, 2009, the mothers and Mexican government mustered
their respective forces in
be heard around the world. Supported
by Mexican and international lawyers
and human rights
activists, the mothers from
hours retelling
their stories to the judges.
In her testimony, Benita
Monarrez accused Mexican government officials of
covering-up
the murders for other officials involved in the crimes.
“This trial proves we are right. The state has never approached
us, always
acting with a lot of hypocrisy and nothing has
changed,” Josefina Gonzalez
testified. “I don’t believe
anything is going to change if the court
doesn’t help us in
the name of all the women of
For its defense, the
Mexican government flew in a team from the Foreign
Relations
Ministry and the PGJE, including Chihuahua State Attorney
General Patricia Gonzalez.
she was satisfied to represent the Mexican state and its
“tireless work of
changing the logic of gender themes and the
murder of women in my
country.”
Gonzalez admitted that
numerous irregularities characterized the cotton
field
investigations during 2001-2004, but insisted authorities
cleaned up
their act afterward, reordered the investigation
and moved forward with a
statewide legal reform- a project
supported by the United States Agency
for International
Development. The PGJE stands ready and willing to
provide
additional reparations and assistance to the mothers, Gonzalez
said.
“There were omissions and irregularities before my
service,” Gonzalez,
said, “not only in these cases but other
ones too that have since been
resolved and the mothers left
totally satisfied.”
Gonzalez’s comments were reminiscent
of statements made by previous PGJE
personnel, including
former
(1998-2001), who frequently
accused predecessors for widespread disarray
in the femicide
investigations only to be later blamed themselves by
successors.
Rodrigo Caballero, a special homicide
investigator for the PGJE told the
involved in the women’s murders.
Currently, the state’s
prime suspect is Edgar Alvarez Cruz, who was
fingered by an
old friend, Jose Francisco Granados de la Paz. The two
young
men came to public light in 2006 when Tony Garza, then the
ambassador in
were cooperating with
Mexican officials in what could be a major break in
the
cotton field case.
A former
Cruz was deported to
by Granados to
the Texas Rangers.
Alvarez has since been convicted of
the murder of another cotton field
victim, Mayra Juliana
Reyes Solis, whose slaying is not part of the
month,
and is serving a 26-year sentence.
Alvarez and his family
vehemently deny the murder charges, pointing to
contradictions and irregularities in the state’s most recent
cotton field
case.
In past statements to
questioned the
credibility of their relative. Reportedly prone to abusing
drugs and alcohol, Granados was emotionally disturbed and
overcome with
hallucinatory flights of fancy, according to
relatives.
Abraham Hinojos, defense attorney for Alvarez,
said his client’s rejected
appeal was also a loss to society
since “we continue in the same (legal)
practices.”
David Pena, attorney for Irma Monreal, ridiculed the Mexican
state’s
defense in
something.”
With oral testimony completed in
will review legal documents and deliberate the merits of the
case. A
decision is expected later this year or early next
year. Typically, the
OAS court conducts proceedings in
countries not involved in a legal
complaint. Hence the trail
setting of
and an entire season
removed from
Local Fall-Out from the
OAS Case
In Ciudad Juarez and the state of
reopened a huge can of worms. Purported PGJE documents
leaked to El Diario
newspaper, contended the Mexican
government had provided generous
compensation to the families
of the three cotton field murder victims
involved in the OAS
case.
In a detailed piece published on the second day of
the
Diario said the mothers
and other named relatives of Hererra, Ramos and
Gonzalez,
received money for funeral expenses, educational grants, homes,
and businesses including a tortilla shop and small grocery
store. The
state support surpassed more than one million
dollars, according to El
Diario. State government assistance
also consisted of providing medical
and psychological
services for surviving family members, El Diario
reported.
Besides the very personal details reported in the El Diario
story, the
newspaper account was unusual in that it included
information that
reportedly will be used in the
officials routinely deny reporters access to
sensitive legal documents
which are part of ongoing cases.
Whether the story is accurate or not, it could refuel
disagreements
between different groups of victims’ mothers.
Before it was quickly yanked from El Diario’s website, the
story drew
sharp comments from several readers. An individual
identified as Tararecua
questioned when
would be tried internationally for
murders of women, including the 11
bodies discovered in
writer identified as Esperanza applauded the
action, but
urged the OAS legal authorities to hold Mexican officials
accountable for allowing a violent criminal gang to run amok in
the
Two other
documents related to the cotton field case also grabbed media
and public attention in recent days. Portions of a PGJE report
submitted
to the Inter-American court were challenged by a
separate report from the
Argentine Anthropological Forensic
Team, a group of investigators
contracted several years ago
by the PGJE under pressure from activists and
relatives of
disappeared women to identify the remains of unknown female
murder victims in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City.
The
PGJE report contended the majority of 447 women’s murders in
Juarez
than 60 percent of the cases solved and scores of murderers
brought to
justice. The Argentine forensic experts, however,
questioned several
aspects of the report. Media reports
indicate the true number of female
murder victims during the
time covered by the PGJE report is more than
600.
Chilean Judge Cecilia Medina Quiroga, president of the
Court
women’s
murder cases supposedly resolved in the 1993-2008 period.
Ticked off by the contradictory reports, Chihuahua state
lawmaker Antonio
Sandoval proposed last week that the
Chihuahua State Congress pass a
resolution demanding the PGJE
provide a report on its femicide report and
explain how much
money the state agency has spent publicizing the
information.
While new battles brew over old but unresolved issues, three
mothers of
Ciudad Juarez murder victims await a
verdict from the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights.
“There was no justice done in
mothers have,” said WOLA’s Maureen Meyer.
______________________________________________________
Additional sources: Norte, May 3, 2009. Article by Nohemi
Barraza and
Guadalupe Salcido. Lapolaka.com, April 29
and May 1, 2009. El Paso Times,
May 1, 2009. Article by Diana
Washington
and 30, 2009. Articles by Silvia Otero
and Notimex.
El Diario de Juarez,
April 25 and 29, 2009. Articles by
Sandra Rodriguez Nieto, Gabriela
Minjares and Alejandro
Salmon. Cimacnoticias.com, April 28 and 29, 2009.
Articles by Sandra Torres Pastrana, Nancy Betan, and editorial
staff.
Wola.org
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line,
U.S.-Mexico border
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