| February
27, 2004
Juarez –
Again
By Richard
Baldwin/HispanicVista.com
Recently, a group of
celebrities organized a demonstration
against Mexico's inaction on solving the
10-year string of unsolved brutal murders
of young Mexican women and girls. More
and more the world is taking notice. And
now the ante has been upped again by none
other than the famous actress Jane Fonda
(of Vietnam War "fame") who
headed the last group. The list included
others of the arts like Sally Field and
playwright Eve Ensler. Our federal
government can't seem to understand is
that this will not quit, and even more
the worldwide attention this is getting.
We have had
delegations from the US congress down to
Juárez and our national capitol numerous
times. Also the UN and a number of human
rights groups from all over the world has
come. Don't our political leaders realize
just how inept México looks to the
world? Almost every week, some newspaper
in the world is writing about this
disaster. This includes papers in Europe,
Asia and even South Africa. Don't our
leaders care?
It would seem that
the world cares more about this mess than
our own citizens do. This is not the
case. Our Mexicans do care . . . but
in most cases, they have given up hope
that something will be done. And that is
tragic.
We note that the
state of Quintana Roo has initiated a
state level investigation into the sexual
exploitation of women and children there.
This is a more recent situation than that
in Chihuahua where Juárez is, but
Quintana Roo (where Cancun is) is far
more sensitive to international scandal
than our northern Border States are. In
fact there was a recent extradition of a
pedophile arrested there to the US to
face justice. Nothing like this in the
northern border states though.
The final analysis
is that the northern states are so mired
down in complete endemic corruption from
the drug business that the state
governments simply don't care. All they
seem to care about is denial. And the
federal government is actively
investigating only 14 murder cases . . .
out of over 300. Wow!
Over the last two
years, at least 300 police have been
fired in Chihuahua for "various
offenses"; but none have been
prosecuted. Interesting. And I note that
one of my original theories on a possible
motive for this is appearing in other
reports in the world. And that is the
possibility of sick films showing rape,
torture and murder for the sick sex
business.
Let's look at the
northern states, particularly Chihuahua,
for their drug trafficking enforcement.
While the federal government has been
moving strongly in this respect, we see
nothing from the state level. Oscar
Maynez, former chief of forensics for Chihuahua,
said recently that the state's anti-drug
unit has been turned into an
"intelligence gathering unit for
traffickers". In other words, the
dope business runs at least one of our
northern states. And we should expect
that this type of government would want
to protect innocent citizens there?
This is a job for
our federal government. It is obviously
what could legally described as a
national emergency affecting our very
national security. All we need is the
political courage of our federal
government to act.
The latest thing was
at the federal level was to appoint, once
again, a "special federal
prosecutor", Maria Lopez Urbina. I
wish her well, but let's see if she can
be given the authority to look at the
files of those cases that were denied
access to former special prosecutors.
Let's give her a real chance and the
needed broad authority to do something
more than a "show" of doing
something real.
The upcoming
presidential election has come to the
front here, two years before the fact,
and I offer some advice for those who are
jockeying for position: try running on a
platform for not only creating real jobs
but to provide real protection with a
legal and justice system that our people
desperately need.
Marta Sahagún, our
first lady (who may or may not run) is
spending her time giving free bicycles to
needy children. She has also in the past,
made drug addiction a big issue. May I
suggest that she (and others) offer
something new on making México safer for
Mexicans?
But, one thing for
sure, this is not going away. The world
is watching. But so far, all we have is
national shame.
__________________________________________
Richard N.
Baldwin T., a HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com)
contributing columnist, lives in Tlalnepantla,
Edo de México E-mail at: R1041643422@aol.com
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