JUAREZ FEMICIDE UPDATE: BULLDOZING THE MEMORIES OF MURDERED WOMEN

In the run-up to International Women's Day 2007, the memories of
murdered women in Ciudad Juarez are being erased. Workmen have
started clearing a portion of the old cotton field where the
tortured, raped and mutilated remains of 8 young women were
discovered in November 2001. Located near the site of the new US
Consulate in the border city, the cotton field is suddenly in the
middle of a hot commercial zone. New hotels and other establishments
catering to the diplomatic and immigration services offered by the US
government are expected to open soon for business.

Currently, 8 big crosses erected in memory of the murder victims mark
a section of the cotton field. Now a landmark, the field is almost a
required stop for foreign journalists, filmmakers, human rights and
women's activists, and others who reclaim the memories of the young
women. Mothers and other relatives of the victims hold memorials in
the cotton field. For almost five years, Chihuahua state law
enforcement authorities misidentified three of the victims as
Guadalupe Luna de la Rosa, Veronica Martinez and Barbara Aracely
Martinez, all of whom are now considered disappeared persons. Thanks
to the efforts of the Argentine Anthropological Forensic Team, two of
the victims were correctly identified last year as Merlin Elizabeth
Rodriguez Saenz and Maria Rocina Galicia Meraz, both of whom vanished
in 2001. The eighth cotton field victim remains unidentified. "One
does not forget," said Javier Camacho, the new owner of the cotton
field property under development. "It's sad what happened, but
nothing is gained by the crosses, and one way of stopping this is by
developing the border."

Although the cotton field case and scores of other rape- murders in
Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City stand unsolved, some local officials
and business leaders have increasingly grumbled about the so-called
"myth" or "black legend" of femicide that is allegedly giving Ciudad
Juarez a bad name on the world stage. Especially within the last
year, Ciudad Juarez media have downplayed the women's murders. A
long-running website that publicized the cases of disappeared women
and men, pesquisasenlinea.org, mysteriously vanished from cyberspace,
as did the long-running femicide section of the Norte newspaper.
Readers of major Ciudad Juarez news websites would have had no idea
that Jennifer Lopez was recognized by Amnesty International in a
Berlin ceremony this month for her role in the upcoming Gregory Nava
movie Bordertown, a fictional film about the Juarez women's murders.
While JLO's award received ample attention in the Mexican national
and international press, it did not even register a blip on several
Ciudad Juarez news web sites.

Still, even the leading El Diario newspaper has had trouble
swallowing the official story surrounding three men first accused
last year of orchestrating the cotton field murders. In a February 18
editorial, El Diario questioned the authorities' case and recounted
the long history of police fabricating femicide scapegoats in Ciudad
Juarez and Chihuahua City. Late last week, the Ciudad Juarez press
was also forced to report on a possible new femicide after the body
of a semi- naked woman was discovered on the morning of February 23
in an empty near the city's international airport. Like numerous past
cases, the woman's body was found by playing children. Although the
unidentified woman was found in various stages of undress, a
preliminary official report claimed she was not murdered. Neighbors
said it was the second time that a dead body had been discovered in
the same lot.

Sources: Frontera NorteSur (FNS): 02/25; El Diario de Juarez: 02/18,
23 and 24; Lapolaka.com: 02/23; La Jornada: 08/22, 08/24; Norte:
02/21-22