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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2005 
Groups Call for End to Impunity
 Wire services
| | A coalition of activist groups Friday took aim at the federal government to take effective action to end the murders in Ciudad Juárez and prosecute the guilty. |
Dozens of activists protested Friday outside the presidential palace of Los Pinos against impunity in the more than 400 mostly-unsolved slayings of women and girls in the northern border state of Chihuahua.
Demonstrations were also held in at least eight state capitals as well as Lima, Peru, and Caracas, Venezuela, where protesters sent a message to Mexican officials condemning the relentless pattern of violence in the northern state.
In a statement read at the rally, organizers proposed beefing up security in Ciudad Juárez, located across from El Paso, Texas, particularly around high-risk zones where the victims are often assaulted or kidnapped areas that include the most-common routes from transit centers to the factories where many of the victims worked.
These desolate parts of the city are considered some of its most dangerous. The protesters called on authorities to improve the situation by developing the city's infrastructure by extending public transportation systems as well as encouraging more commercial and residential development along these routes to decrease the isolation that aids would-be attackers.
"We are here to denounce the 428 murders of women in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua (the state capital). It appears the federal government is planning to close the book forever on those cases by declaring them 'mostly solved,' " the communique said.
The document was signed by a coalition of seven Chihuahua civic groups and backed by several dozen organizations from six other states, as well as foreign-based organizations.
"We are out on the streets again today denouncing 12 years of impunity, during which barely 39 cases have gone to court and only four defendants have been convicted," the groups said.
"There have been a lot of proposed resolutions to the problem," the coalition noted, "but the resources allocated to the task have been insufficient. The gravity of the situation urges action that the government simply isn't providing." |
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