New Police force first test. Mexico City Kidnaping

Mexico lake town besieged by kidnappings is first assignment for new police force

The first assignment for members of a new police force created to combat crimes affecting industry, farms and businesses is Valle de Bravo, a chic resort town near Mexico City that has seen a recent spate of kidnappings, an official said Tuesday. Hundreds of members of the new force, known as the gendarmerie, have traveled to the town alongside a pine-rimmed lake.
A federal official said the group of officers is one of several being deployed throughout Mexico. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2014, file photo, officers belonging to Mexico's newest police force, known as the gendarmerie, salute during the launching ceremony for the new force at the Federal Police headquarters in Mexico City. Officials said Tuesday Aug. 27, 2014, that the first assignment for members of the new police force is Valle de Bravo, a chic resort town near Mexico City that has seen a recent spate of kidnappings.

In recent weeks, kidnappers have targeted Mexico City residents who keep a second home in the town as well as working class people.
Authorities say the kidnappers are members of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel.
The group of officers is part of a special 5,000-strong police force launched last week to combat crime that is strangling commerce in some Mexican regions.
The gendarmerie is made up of fresh recruits whose average age is 28 and who have never served on another police force.
The group sent to Valle de Bravo will join about 600 other federal and Mexico state law enforcement officials, including soldiers and marines, who have recently been sent to the area 90 miles west of Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY — The first assignment for members of a new police force created to combat crimes affecting industry, farms and businesses is Valle de Bravo, a chic resort town near Mexico City that has seen a recent spate of kidnappings, an official said Tuesday.
Hundreds of members of the new force, known as the gendarmerie, have traveled to the town alongside a pine-rimmed lake.
A federal official said the group of officers is one of several being deployed throughout Mexico. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2014, file photo, officers belonging to Mexico's newest police force, known as the gendarmerie, salute during the launching ceremony for the new force at the Federal Police headquarters in Mexico City. Officials said Tuesday Aug. 27, 2014, that the first assignment for members of the new police force is Valle de Bravo, a chic resort town near Mexico City that has seen a recent spate of kidnappings. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

In recent weeks, kidnappers have targeted Mexico City residents who keep a second home in the town as well as working class people.
Authorities say the kidnappers are members of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel.
The group of officers is part of a special 5,000-strong police force launched last week to combat crime that is strangling commerce in some Mexican regions.
The gendarmerie is made up of fresh recruits whose average age is 28 and who have never served on another police force.
The group sent to Valle de Bravo will join about 600 other federal and Mexico state law enforcement officials, including soldiers and marines, who have recently been sent to the area 90 miles west of Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY — The first assignment for members of a new police force created to combat crimes affecting industry, farms and businesses is Valle de Bravo, a chic resort town near Mexico City that has seen a recent spate of kidnappings, an official said Tuesday.
Hundreds of members of the new force, known as the gendarmerie, have traveled to the town alongside a pine-rimmed lake.
A federal official said the group of officers is one of several being deployed throughout Mexico. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2014, file photo, officers belonging to Mexico's newest police force, known as the gendarmerie, salute during the launching ceremony for the new force at the Federal Police headquarters in Mexico City. Officials said Tuesday Aug. 27, 2014, that the first assignment for members of the new police force is Valle de Bravo, a chic resort town near Mexico City that has seen a recent spate of kidnappings. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

In recent weeks, kidnappers have targeted Mexico City residents who keep a second home in the town as well as working class people.
Authorities say the kidnappers are members of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel.
The group of officers is part of a special 5,000-strong police force launched last week to combat crime that is strangling commerce in some Mexican regions.
The gendarmerie is made up of fresh recruits whose average age is 28 and who have never served on another police force.
The group sent to Valle de Bravo will join about 600 other federal and Mexico state law enforcement officials, including soldiers and marines, who have recently been sent to the area 90 miles west of Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY — The first assignment for members of a new police force created to combat crimes affecting industry, farms and businesses is Valle de Bravo, a chic resort town near Mexico City that has seen a recent spate of kidnappings, an official said Tuesday.
Hundreds of members of the new force, known as the gendarmerie, have traveled to the town alongside a pine-rimmed lake.
A federal official said the group of officers is one of several being deployed throughout Mexico. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2014, file photo, officers belonging to Mexico's newest police force, known as the gendarmerie, salute during the launching ceremony for the new force at the Federal Police headquarters in Mexico City. Officials said Tuesday Aug. 27, 2014, that the first assignment for members of the new police force is Valle de Bravo, a chic resort town near Mexico City that has seen a recent spate of kidnappings. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

In recent weeks, kidnappers have targeted Mexico City residents who keep a second home in the town as well as working class people.
Authorities say the kidnappers are members of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel.
The group of officers is part of a special 5,000-strong police force launched last week to combat crime that is strangling commerce in some Mexican regions.
The gendarmerie is made up of fresh recruits whose average age is 28 and who have never served on another police force.
The group sent to Valle de Bravo will join about 600 other federal and Mexico state law enforcement officials, including soldiers and marines, who have recently been sent to the area 90 miles west of Mexico City.

immigrants and the immigration issues

As early as 1895 at the Atlanta International Exposition, the great African-American educator, Booker T. Washington delivered his famous "Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are" speech, which he pleaded with the racist titans of industry to hire African Americans rather than import cheap foreign labor. His pleas were ignored.
Then, in 1969, Cesar Chavez, who understood the law of labor supply and demand, took up Washington's long ignored challenge to big business, and led a march to the Mexican border to protest illegal immigration, which he knew reduced the wages of hard working legal Hispanic immigrants, particularly the wages of farm workers, to poverty levels. Those pleas, too, were ignored.
Typical of the economic catastrophe thus unleashed in the 1970's was the plight of African Americans working as janitors in buildings in Los Angeles who earned high wages and substantial benefits until greedy businessmen began to hire independent contractors who in turn hired illegal immigrants. Within a year, wages were cut by two-thirds, and benefits eliminated.
Then in 1986 an amiable but naïve President Ronald Reagan ushered in the great Amnesty Bill, offering amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in return for assurances that border security would be tightened, and employers of illegal immigrants vigorously prosecuted. Democrats protested that, while such an amnesty might cater to the greed of big business' thirst for profits, it would inevitably lure even more cheap labor to the U.S. at the expense of African Americans and legal immigrants desperate to feed their families.
In the 1980s, at a time when African American teenage unemployment approached 80 percent, big business even petitioned the INS for visas for more cheap foreign labor on grounds that there was an "unskilled labor shortage." Amnesty apologists claimed that Americans wouldn't do the "dirty work" that illegal immigrants would perform, deliberately ignoring the fact that Americans gratefully collect garbage or risk their lives in the coal mines if decent wages are paid - wages which are reduced to poverty levels by the influx of cheap foreign labor.
Again, the cries of protest and reason were ignored, and the results are being played out at the U.S. border today. Not satisfied with luring cheap foreign labor to the U.S., the pro-illegal immigration lobby persists in touting amnesty even as its promises of future amnesty lure little children to risk their lives in the desert. In the words of the tort lawyer, the U.S. has now become the world's "attractive nuisance".
In the teeth of a survey conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center that showed that only 7 percent of Hispanics thought there were "too few" Hispanic immigrants, much of the media continues to promulgate the myth that politicians need to lure even more illegal immigrants with promises or amnesty - presumably on the premise that, unlike Cesar Chavez, African Americans and poverty-stricken Hispanics are ignorant of the effect of cheap foreign labor on wages. They are not, and politicians such as President George W. Bush won precious few votes by claiming to believe it.
When a National Academy of Sciences study showed that illegal immigrants without a high school degree cost Americans $100,000.00 more in social services and education than they contributed in labor, the study was ignored by the amnesty lobby.
The Reagan/Bush amnesty agenda has failed and caused untold misery amidst economic catastrophe for minorities and the poor. It turned the most basic human notions of fairness and decency on its head - rewarding those who commit illegal entry, felony forgery of government issued documents such as social security cards, and failure to pay taxes, while punishing those who patiently wait years for legal entry, endure extensive background checks, health examinations, and high fees. The health aspect of illegal immigration has by itself alarmed public health officials who are seeing the dramatic rise of diseases such as drug-resistant tuberculosis among immigrants who enter without health inspections.
Those who advocate streamlined procedures for legal immigration rather than spending billions to accommodate illegal entrants are marginalized and denigrated, while those who resist e-verify and border security, and deliberately confuse legal immigration issues with illegal immigration issues, are rewarded with media accolades for their "humanity".
Meanwhile, countries whose governments are faced with an expanding population that their economies are unable to support find it is the course of least resistance to encourage its excess population to migrate north rather than take on internal reforms or to provide women with basic rights and access to contraception. (If human-exporting countries were at least asked to reimburse the U.S. for the social costs of such a policy, they might be less enthusiastic about exporting the people they can't support in their own country).
In short, the amnesty lobby that continues to lure little children to risk their lives in the desert with false promises and hope, has lost the moral high ground, and are unlikely to regain it if they persist in following the failed Reagan/Bush agenda.

Mexico spill could cost Grupo Mexico billions of pesos

UPDATE 1-Mexico spill could cost Grupo Mexico billions of pesos- Gov't

Mexican metals miner and railroad operator Grupo Mexico could face a bill running into billions of pesos to clean up a toxic spill that could prove to be the country's worst mining disaster in modern times, the government said on Tuesday.
Grupo Mexico could face an initial fine of 40 million pesos ($3.05 million) over the spill into a river near the Buenavista copper mine in the northern state of Sonora, Mexico's environmental prosecutor Guillermo Haro said.
The company is in the midst of a $3.4 billion expansion project at the mine, which was formerly known as Cananea and has the largest proven copper reserves in the world. The expansion aims to boost production capacity to 1.3 million tonnes by 2017.
Haro's office says Grupo Mexico pumped 40,000 cubic meters of toxic mining acid into the Bacanuchi river. It said the clean up of the spill "could run into hundreds of millions or even billions of pesos".
Shares in Grupo Mexico rose 1.24 percent on Tuesday at 47.21 pesos per share following news of the scale of the potential fine.
The spill could be "the worst environmental disaster in the country's mining industry in modern times," Per Environment Minister Juan Jose Guerra.
Last week, Mexico's Congress urged the government to cancel Grupo Mexico's concession to operate the mine. (1 US dollar = 13.1063 Mexican peso) .

crack split the Earth in the Mexican state of Sonora

A giant crack split the Earth in the Mexican state of Sonora this week, cutting a roadway in two and leaving locals not only surprised but puzzled as to what could have caused the Earth to separate. At the same time, many have become worried that whatever caused the two-thirds-of-a-mile trench might be a precursor. But scientists insist that there is no cause for alarm, even though they may not know -- yet -- exactly what caused the giant crack.
Traveler's Today reported Aug. 23 that the giant crack that recently appeared outside Hermosillo in Sonora in northwest Mexico has been labeled by scientists as basically harmless. Stretching a kilometer, the giant crack is almost five meters (16 ft) wide and eight meters (26 ft) deep and set in the middle of an expanse of farmland. A video taken with a camera attached to a drone flying the length of the massive trench shows what looks like a giant scar on the Earth.
The giant crack in the Earth lies in an area impacted by the San Andreas Fault, and some local officials, according to News.com, believe that a recent earthquake (Sunday) might have caused the fissure. But
"It's definitely not a cause for alarm for the population," Martin Valencia Moreno, head of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Regional Station of the Geological Institute, told the Excelsior newspaper, according to Huffington Post. "It's more something sensationalist and people like to encourage that sort of thing."
Moreno added that he did not believe that an eartquake had caused the deep fissure, either, noting that with an earthquake, the ground levels on the sides of the crack would have been staggered. Instead, they appeared to be relatively even, the fissure seeming to have be produced by a pulling apart and a falling away.
A group of geologists at the University of Sonora believe that the fissure was created by when land collapsed into what had been an underground stream. The stream was likely created by leakage from a farmer-built levee, which had created an underground stream that eventually weakened the earth above it, causing it to erode and collapse.
The unexpected rift divided Highway 26 and has caused a disruption in local traffic flow, forcing vehicles to drive around the affected area. And despite the reassuring words of experts, locals still worry, especially since another giant crack has been reported nearby.

Coke man run over by vehicle

Police: Man's legs run over at taquería in Palmview

Autopedestrian accident at the Taquería Tamaulipas in Palmview Authorities are investigating a Monday morning accident that ended with a man's legs being run over outside a drive-thru taco restaurant in Palmview. It all happened at the Taquería Tamaulipas off La Homa Road and 2 Mile Line around 11:30 a.m. Monday. Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office deputies told Action 4 News that a man was sitting down at the drive-thru restaurant. A car came through and reportedly ran over the man's legs. Investigators said the victim was a Coca-Cola employee who was working on a machine when the accident happened. Owners of the restaurant declined to comment about the accident.

Deported U.S. military veterans activate in Tijuana

The Bunker of the Deported Veterans of America is located on 3rd street, near Parque Teniente Guerrero, on top of Baja Gym. Dark steps behind an iron door next to the gym's entrance lead you to two green doors and an open space. One of the green doors has a handwritten sign that reads “Bunker: Support House of the Deported Veterans of America. Director Hector Barajas.”

I knock on the door a couple times until I hear “Pasale.”

In the corner of a large open room, behind improvised desks, sit two veterans on their computers. A map of Mexico and a bunch of Army certificates decorate this corner they use as office space. The rest of the room has all the necessities for basic living. A loud fan barely helps allay the summer heat. A large American flag next to a smaller Mexican flag act as curtains for the sliding glass doors that lead to a balcony with no railing.

This is Spc. Hector Barajas’s home, a veteran who served in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne division from 1995 until 2001. Barajas shares his home with fellow deported veterans. Veterans can stay at the bunker while they find a better situation. Alex Caballero, a former Marine (1998-2007), is calling the place home for now.

“I see this house as the hub for all the deported veterans around the world,” says Barajas, “because this is where we've been doing a lot of the advocating, raising awareness, protests.... We are also working on an actual list of who are the deported veterans; these are numbers that the VA or Homeland Security doesn't have.”

Barajas estimates that there are between 3000 and 50,000 deported veterans around the world. He estimates that there’re more than 1000 in Baja California.

“The problem is that when you get deported, you think you are the only one. I talked to a guy that got deported to Jamaica, so I connected him to other veterans that have been deported there. We're forming virtual bunkers around the world. If someone gets deported in Tamaulipas, I help him connect with other veterans in the area. I tried to get these guys motivated, to raise awareness of their situation and where they are at and to get organized.”

Besides connecting veterans with one another, Barajas works to get benefits for them and to get them back home.

“Benefits are going to be easier to get; going back home is going to be more difficult. If they made me sign something that says I could go home and get none of my benefits, I would do it right now. If they tell me to jump from 100 airplanes, I'll serve a year in Iraq if I have to. I would do whatever it takes to go home.”

Like most deportees, a crime was committed for the system to notice them.

“A crime shouldn't take away your citizenship,” says Barajas. “I served a three-year prison term for a discharge of a firearm on to a vehicle…. I paid my debt to society.”

Alex Caballero claims he was unaware that he was part of a scam for Schwarzenegger's campaign as he presents me with a mountain of evidence and law jargon. Both, Caballero and Barajas call California their home. Barajas moved to Compton when he was seven years old; Caballero has lived all over California since he was two.

I ask them what comfort of home (besides family) they are missing and if there's something I can bring them next time I come back from San Diego.

“Family comes and visits the guys — for some is every week, others a month or so,” says Barajas. “You know what I miss, Church's Fried Chicken, KFC is not the same here. Church's hot and spicy is my favorite, the chicken over here doesn't taste the same at all.” — Hector misses a simple commodity, and since there's a Church's Chicken just across the border, I'll be bringing him some hot and spicy.

Alex in the other hand misses something that I cannot provide. “Just the freedom itself, the general feeling of being part of America, being around what you know, your family and friends.” 

Death in the Night

EXECUTED IN THE CASTRO, NEXT TO BRIDGE ABASOLO

Unknown subject came with another yet unidentified that short conversation after shot point-blank in the head, seeing him drop dead fled in an SUV Jeep Cheroke black color, which is tracked by the authorities.

It was about nine in the evening when the central patrol it was reported that in the back of the OXXO and a gas station that is on the bridge of Abasolo colony, an injured person shot in the head was, so municipal and ministerial agents made ​​ready the place where they found a person lying face down bleeding from the head,

Paramedics declared the man dead, so the presence of experts from the State Attorney's Office was asked to start lifting.

After several patrols were not traced or Jeep or the alleged murderer, he said he used a weapon whose high power 9 or 40 mm caps were in place on the body.

VIZIO 39- and 42-Inch E-Series Flat Panel Televisions

Consumers should stop using this product unless otherwise instructed. It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product.

Recall date: August 06, 2014     Recall number: 14-251

Recall Summary

Name of product: VIZIO E-Series 39-inch and 42-inch televisions
Hazard:

The stand assembly can fail and cause the television to tip over unexpectedly, posing a risk of impact injury to the consumer.

Remedy:

View Details

Repair

Consumer Contact: VIZIO toll-free at (855) 472-7450 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT Saturday and Sunday. Consumers can also visit the firm’s website www.vizio.com and click on “Safety Notice” for more information.

Recall Details

Units

About 245,000

Description

This recall involves Vizio E-series 39- and 42-inch Full-Array LED flat panel televisions. The flat panel televisions are black with “VIZIO” printed in the lower right corner of the television front and the VIZIO logo in the center of the back. The following model and serial numbers are included in the recall:

Size	Model	Serial Number
39 Inch	Model No. E390-B0	LAE 8PSBP 4600517 to LAE 8PSBP 4701297 LAE APSBP 500001 to LAE APSBP 4501376 LAQ 8PSBP 5000001  to LAQ 8PSBQ 0804968 LAQ APSBP 4400181 to LAQ APSBQ 2201656 LAT 8PSBP 4801682  to LAT 8PSBP 5008235 LAT APSBP 4800026 to LAT APSBQ 1701656 LAU 8PSBP 4600301  to LAU 8PSBP 5100030 LAU APSBP 4400001 to LAU APSBQ 1100020
	Smart TV Model No. E390i-B0	LAE 8PSAP 4600217 to LAE 8PSAP 4800364 LAE APSAP 4300237 to LAE APSAP 4401296 LAQ 8PSAQ 1500001 to LAQ 8PSAQ 1505973 LAQ APSAP 4401657 to LAQ APSAQ 2401656 LAT APSAQ 0300001 to LAT APSAQ 1701656 LAU 8PSAP 4600001 to LAU 8PSAP 4600216 LAU APSAP 4300001 to LAU APSAP 4300216
42 Inch	Smart TV Model No. E420i-B0	LAQ APTAP 5200001 to LAQ APTAQ 2107039 LAU APTAP 5000001 to LAU APTAQ 2408327

Model and serial numbers are printed on a label on the back of the television.

Incidents/Injuries

VIZIO has received 51 reports of the recalled televisions tipping over. No injuries have been reported.

Remedy

Consumers using the stand assembly should immediately detach the stand, place the television in a safe location and contact VIZIO for a replacement stand assembly. Consumers with wall-mounted televisions should request the replacement stand assembly in case the stand is needed for future use.

Sold at

Best Buy, Meijer, Target, Walmart and other retail stores nationwide , online at Amazon.com, Costco.com, Meijer.com, Sams.com and other internet retailers from December 2013 through June 2014 for between $370 and $450.

Manufacturer

AmTRAN Technology Company Ltd., of Taipei City, Taiwan

Distributor

VIZIO Inc., of Irvine, Calif.

Manufactured in

China and Mexico

El Paso Border Area TV as real as life.

US-Mexico border crime takes center stage in ‘The Bridge’

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, August 3, 2014 9:16 EDT

 

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Murder, corruption and all sorts of sleazy behavior are found on both sides of the US-Mexico border in the US TV drama “The Bridge,” which focuses on an American and a Mexican detective trying to solve bi-national crimes.
The series, which just began its second season in the United States, Latin America and Spain, opened in July 2013 with the gruesome discovery of a woman’s mutilated body placed in the middle of one of the busy bridges over the Rio Grande that links El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
The teeming urban sprawl of about 2 million people — some 1.4 million in Ciudad Juarez and about 600,000 in El Paso — is one city with deep historical, cultural and family ties divided by an international border.
In the show, Ciudad Juarez police detective Marco Ruiz, played by leading Mexican actor Demian Bichir and his Texas counterpart Sonya Cross, played by German actress Diane Kruger, work together to attempt to solve baffling serial killings that have suspects and leads on both sides of the border.
As the investigation unfolds, issues of drug trafficking, human smuggling, bribery and abuse of power in the United States and Mexico, inspired by real-life cases ripped from the headlines, are dealt with in the show.
“Here we talk of all the problems that two countries so different as the United States and Mexico share, but in a fictional setting,” Bichir told AFP in an interview.
The series “does not treat one country as good and the other as bad. That’s one of the things that keeps the viewer’s attention,” said Bichir, nominated for an Oscar for his lead role in the 2011 Chris Weitz movie “A Better Life.”
- Drug wars, illegal immigration -
“The Bridge” is a remake of the 2011 Swedish-Danish TV series “Bron/Broen” adapted to the busy 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) US-Mexico border, legally crossed by one million people a day.
The show includes episodes that touch on the turf wars between Mexican drug cartels to control lucrative smuggling routes into the United States — the world’s largest illicit drug market — and the influence of the cartels on the northern side of the border.
It also addresses the illegal immigration of Mexicans and Central Americans, many of whom are robbed, abused, raped and sometimes murdered by criminal gangs before they even attempt to sneak into the United States.
In this context of rampant, out-of-control violence, Detective Ruiz faces endless obstacles, not only having to deal with the shocking cruelty of some of the crimes, but also the corruption of his own police colleagues.
In El Paso Detective Cross, who has Asperger syndrome and can be brusque and tactless, struggles to enforce US law even while she has a jaded, often uninterested supervisor.
The series “puts the finger on the sore” of the most controversial issues affecting both countries thanks to the honesty of the two lead characters, Bichir said.
- US-Mexican ‘marriage’–
“The Bridge” has found the right formula to bring Americans closer to what is happening in its southern border, “touching fundamental issues to open eyes and allowing viewers to reflect through emotions,” said Demian’s brother Bruno Bichir, who in the series portrays a dark character named Sebastian Cerisola.
“The most important thing is to realize, through this fiction, that Mexico and the United States are in a marriage and that we have a border that we must care for together,” he said.
Americans appear to be increasingly concerned about the southern border, especially with violence linked to the drug trade and the flood of illegal migration.
The show’s first season had some 3.3 million viewers in the United States, and some 14,000 followers on Twitter. The series airs on the FX network, part of the Fox Entertainment Group, and there has been no confirmation yet of a third season.
Demian Bichir hopes that “The Bridge” will take a closer look at the issue of migration to the United States.
“We have to talk about the origin of this massive exodus of children that has arrived at the border,” he said, in reference to the more than 57,000 minors, mostly from Central America, who have illegally crossed into the United States since October.
“It would be worthwhile if ‘The Bridge’ has the time to tell the history of this humanitarian crisis, and that it takes the time to put a face on the 12 million undocumented people living their daily lives in the United States,” he said.

70 kidnapped migrants rescued in northern Mexico

Authorities in northern Mexico say security forces have rescued 70 migrants who had been kidnapped and were being held at a house inside a gated community in the coastal city of Madero.

Tamaulipas state officials say in a statement Friday that there were 41 Hondurans, 18 Salvadoran, six Guatemalans, four Nicaraguans and one Cuban. Officials say there were several children in the rescued group but give no further details.

Authorities say an anonymous call led marines, soldiers and federal and state police to the house Thursday. No arrests were made.

Abductions of migrants for ransom are common in northeastern Mexico, an area controlled by the Zetas and the Gulf drug cartels. In 2010, the Zetas were blamed for the mass slaying of 72 migrants in another part of Tamaulipas.

Women Killed named Femicide

Femicide in Mexico: An Unpunished Crime

Cross-posted from The Red Elephant Foundation

Femicide in Mexico has been brought to light since the beginning of the 1990s when Ciudad Juarez witnessed the killings and disappearances of hundreds women and girls in the state of Chihuahua. However, despite international attention and strong condemnations against the Mexican government -which the Inter-American Human Rights Court considered as one of the main responsible of the killings-, the situation of femicide in the country has worsened.

The concept of femicide has been highly debated by feminists, scholars and international organisations, having almost a collective consent that femicide can be understood as ‘the killing of females by males because they are females’. Femicide is usually perpetrated by men, and in some rare cases, other females may be involved. When compared to male homicide, femicide is generally committed by partners or former partners, and involves domestic ongoing abuse, threats or intimidation, sexual violence or situations in which women have less or fewer power and resources than their partner. The situation of femicide in Mexico more accurately reflects what Marcela Legarde (former Mexican government representative and Chair of the Special Commision on Femicide) described as ‘a crime of the state which tolerates the murders of women and neither vigorously investigates the crimes nor holds the killers accountable’. 

The spread violence across the country in the last decade, aggravated by economic crises and inequality, has a direct impact on violence against women, which comprises a wide range of physical and physiological undermining acts. Comprehensive measures to eradicate these acts and behaviours have not been adequately implemented and collecting data on femicide in the country can be quite challenging, as police and medical data-collection entities do not have the necessary information, or in the worst cases –which is actually extremely common-, is highly manipulated and used as political propaganda.

Human rights groups and international organisations highly differ with official statistics on femicide. Some academics even argue that at this point, one of the greatest challenges in Mexico’s fight for gender justice is to come out with real numbers of what has been going on since Juárez in 1990. Several actors are involved in the process of gathering information, from local media to international NGOs, to investigative agencies and human right bodies, which all agree that the crime of femicide has severely increased in all 32 states of Mexican territory.

In a 23-year period which witnessed the crucial struggle for gender equality policies, public awareness, creation of commissions and agencies to monitor women’s human rights, and most importantly, the fight over the criminalisation of femicide in national legislation have not yet reach their ultimate goal since Juárez. On the contrary, it has gotten worse.

Femicide in Mexico has increased by around 55 per cent between 1990 and 2011. The easiest way to come with an approximate number is through the analysis of statistics per state taking into account different sources from a variety of actors. Let us focus for example on the case of the state of Mexico, in which our now President Enrique Peña Nieto was then governor and in which between 2005 and 2011, around 4.379 women were killed. These figures show that femicide in the state of Mexico only was ten times higher than Ciudad Juárez during the same period of time. In 1990, a woman in Ciudad Juárez was killed every 12 days, and by 2011 a woman was killed every 20 hours.

In the state of Sinaloa just in 2010, over 110 women were killed out of 100.000 female inhabitants. Baja California -which was widely known for its 0.0 rates in killings of women between 1990 and 1992- reported 3.9 murders of women only in 2011, while Durango witnessed the killings of 15 in 2010. Morelos –which was the worst state to be a woman in 1999- had a rate of 5.1 and by 2012, it was 6.3. One of the most shocking cases is the state of Nuevo León, which in 2001 had a rate of 0.4 and by today, it records a total of 9.2 women murdered out of 100.000 female inhabitants, meaning that in 13 years femicide is 23 times higher.

The NGO National Citizens’ Observatory on Femicide says that in 17 out 32 states the crime may increase in the next five years. Femicide continues despite judgments from international tribunals, reports and condemnations by international organisations, and will keep on as a matter of urgent concern in a country already facing high levels of insecurity and widespread violence. Patriarchal based-systems of inequality and exclusion, as well as a systematic pattern of impunity, are a reflection of the lack of access to justice. Closure is far from being reached to those who have lost their women and girls not only in the mentioned states, but also in others such as Oaxaca, Tamaulipas and even my home, Jalisco.

Various international human rights mechanisms have issued several recommendations, and the government adopted a legal framework to ensure the right of women to a life free from violence and discrimination through the General Law of Access for Women to a Life Free of Violence in 2007. However, the Mexican government failed its legislation through the alteration or lack of information; frequent absent cases of violence against women presented before the National Bureau of Data and Information; or having the National System to Prevent, Sanction and Eradicate Violence against Women to discard situations of emergency in relation to the killings of women in the state of Mexico and others, and in the worst cases, not even publicly acknowledging the alarming situation of femicide in the country which clearly violates its constitutional obligations and international human rights law instruments.

Mexico needs to revise its codification efforts in criminal codes at the local levels, which would represent a breakthrough that allows the crystallization of the problem, facilitate the development of prevention and sanctioning mechanisms, as well as providing justice to thousands and thousands of victims. Penalties for crimes committed against women, represent the biggest challenge to overcome femicide in local criminal codes. And lastly, Mexico needs to overcome its critical and alarming impunity-based system, in which human rights are severely undermined.

It seems that in over 20 years violence against women has suffered major setbacks, despite the government’s ‘progressive administrations’ and positive international discourses. Eradicating mass killings of women and tackling impunity are not part of the government’s agenda. At least not in this administration.