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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2005 
Activists Angered By Fox's Comments
 Wire services
| | The President on Monday said the majority of the killings of women in the border city had been solved. |
Monterrey - President Vicente Fox said Tuesday a majority of 12 years of killings against women in Ciudad Juárez had been solved, again angering activists and victims' family members still fuming over his suggestion the slayings had been blown out of proportion.
Speaking to reporters in this northern industrial city, Fox said there have been 323 women killed in Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, since 1993 and added that 230 cases have been solved.
"It's important that people know ... that 200 of the killers are in prison," the president said. "This shows the work done so far, but we're aware there are still other cases that need to be solved."
The tallies he was referring to appear in a report presented in January by María López Urbina, special federal prosecutor in charge of the Juárez cases.
Fox's government announced Monday that López Urbina had been replaced for reasons that were not clear. The conclusions reached in her final report were widely criticized by human rights groups, who said the figures don't add up.
His comments in Monterrey came a day after Fox said a majority of the cases had been solved and the perpetrators incarcerated, but that the media preferred to sensationalize the cases, only focusing on the negative and tarnishing Ciudad Juárez's image.
"It's really surprising that the media only pays attention to security problems but it doesn't pay attention when the criminals are detained," the president said Monday. "The great majority of the cases (in Ciudad Juárez) have been solved and those responsible are behind bars and if someone has proof to the contrary he should come forward."
Evangelina Arce, whose daughter Silvia has been missing since 1998, traveled Tuesday from Juárez to Monterrey to protest the president's comments.
"We're here to ask for a meeting with the president to show him the proof he's asking for," said Arce, who held her daughter's photo and was accompanied by three other women waving banners as the presidential convoy rolled past.
Fox's comments both days enraged many in Juárez and beyond who say far more women were killed than the government is willing to acknowledge and many of those arrested for the crimes were tortured into confessing.
Authorities in the state of Chihuahua, where Juárez is located, say about 340 women have been killed since 1993 in Juárez.
A lot of the women were slain in domestic abuse or drug-related cases disputes, but at least 100 fell victim to slayings that appear to fit a pattern where a young, slender woman was sexually assaulted, strangled, and dumped in the desert outside the city of 1.3 million.
Esther Chávez, a longtime activist and director of Casa Amiga, a nonprofit center that helps rape and abuse victims in Juárez, called Fox's comments "irresponsible" and "contradictory."
"If the cases have been solved, why does the federal government keep sending people to work on the investigations?" Chávez asked, pointing out a new federal special prosecutor and 30 more federal investigators have been assigned to the Juárez cases.
"For the authorities most cases have been solved," Chávez said. "But what they won't recognize is that many of the men they have in prison have been tortured into confessing." |
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