Charles Bowden on “Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields"

Source: Democracy Now

First Lady Michelle Obama arrived in Mexico City Tuesday night after making a stop in Haiti on her first official trip abroad without the president. Her trip to Mexico comes as a new report by the Mexican government has found the death toll from the so-called drug war is much higher than previously thought. Nearly 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since a US-backed military crackdown on cartels began more than three years ago. The report said 2009 was the deadliest year in the drug war, with over 9,600 people killed. The death toll is on track to be even higher in 2010. We speak to reporter Charles Bowden, author of Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields.

http://ow.ly/1yCaa

Saturday, June 12, 2010
Mexico: In the city of murdered women, the girls keep disappearing

By Daniela Pastrana. Republished permission Inter Press Service (IPS )copyright Inter Press Service (IPS)

"Sometimes I'm cheerful, but other times I see no reason for working in the community or even for life," said Paula Flores, who has become the symbol of the fight for justice for the hundreds of women who have been murdered or disappeared in this northern Mexican border city.

"Sometimes I hit bottom," admitted Flores, 52, speaking to IPS in her home. Her voice was subdued and her sad gaze rested on some point out in the desert that surrounds the Lomas de Poleo neighbourhood. Located in Ciudad Juárez's western outskirts, it is a long way from city centre -- and poverty is more than evident.

Sand covers the unpaved streets, an extension of the desert that for the last two decades has witnessed some of the most gruesome sexual violence -- nearly all of which has gone unpunished.

Paula Flores is the focus of a documentary film that was screened at the 3rd International Human Rights Film Festival, May 21-June 3 in Mexico City, 1,840 kilometres south of Ciudad Juárez.

Directed by José Bonilla, "La Carta: Sagrario... nunca has muerto para mí" (The Letter: Sagrario... For Me, You Never Died), centred on the mother's perspective, follows the 12-year fight for justice of the family of Sagrario González Flores, who was raped, tortured and murdered in 1998.

"Juárez is an issue that is a challenge to all of us," the director told IPS.

Sagrario disappeared Apr. 16, 1998, two months before her 18th birthday. Her body was found in the desert 14 days later. She was the fourth of seven children of Paula Flores and Jesús González. Her father committed suicide in 2006, unable to overcome his grief.

The family had moved to Ciudad Juárez, in Chihuahua state, in 1995 from a town in the neighbouring state of Durango. They dreamed of improving their lives in a city where the for-export factories, known as "maquilas," were still booming.

In the 1970s, Mexico had become fertile ground for these subsidised and tax- exempt assembly plants, which are largely unregulated and operate on cheap labour, employing mostly women.

"We had no idea what awaited us here," Flores said, her voice a whisper.

In February 2005, the family convinced the police to arrest José Luis Hernández, alias El Manuelillo, a well-known figure in the neighbourhood who worked as a "coyote" -- a human trafficker who was paid to cross undocumented migrants illegally into the United States.

Hernández had disappeared for seven years, shortly after the crime. It was the family's own investigation that led to him.

In his initial statement, he said two men had paid him 500 dollars to deliver the young woman, who was intercepted as she left her job at the maquila, shortly after 3:00 pm. That was not the usual time that her shift ended -- management had abruptly changed her schedule -- which meant her father was not there to accompany her home.

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