October 14, 2004
the police issued defamatory declarations about her daughter to the press, justifiying her death by saying that she was a prostitute, which, as in other cases, was a lie.
CARAVAN TO CIUDAD JUAREZ
by swaneagle harijan
Over 380 women have been violently murdered in Juarez, and hundreds are not yet found.
The caravan to Ciudad Juarez is being called by the Mexico Solidarity Network to bring attention to the unsolved murders of over 400 young women in Ciudad Juarez, most under 25 and some as young as 11. There are as many as 1000 more women missiing. (My statistics are more current and taken from Amnesty International.) One body found in a duffle bag behind a Carrows restaurant in Castro Valley, CA was of a 13 year old girl from Juarez.
When the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1992, hundreds of multinational corporations, most from the U.S., moved to border regions along the Rio Grande inside Mexico. No EPA regulations, dirt cheap labor, no human rights standards for workers, an influx of young, mostly female Indians from the south looking for the "American dream" migrated with their families to work in the maquiladoras. Notorious for toxic waste severe enough to cause the births of at least 30 brainless babies across from Brownsville, Texas, the maquilas are now known for the killing fields that surround these remote factories.
Cecilia Rodriquez, who was the American spokesperson for the Zapatista (The Zapatista uprising commenced on the eve of '92, NAFTA's debut, called the death knell forIndigenous Peoples) struggle in Chiapas, is who i first heard about the killing from when she spoke in Olympia in the spring of 1999. At that time, there had been 100 bodies found. The circumstances under which the women are murdered suggest a group of serial killers. Women have been raped, tortured and mutilated. It is horrific.
Police have been ineffectual and complicit. In some cases, they may be involved. Chihuahua State, Ciudad Juarez and the Mexican government are fraught with corruption, inaction, abuse of victims families and arbitrary arrests and torture around these cases.
When we were in Berkeley, I worked with Women In Black and the giant Mourning Mothers Puppets to vigil in front of the Mexican Consulate to bring attention to the situation. We did get some T.V. coverage, thanks to the work of Mary Bull of Mourning Mothers. We also leafletted on 16th and Mission passing out over 250 flyers in less than an hour.
In my work with the people of Big Mountain, I learned of serial torture killings of relocatees and other Indiigenous people in bordertowns like Gallup, Shiprock, Winslow and Farmington. I also learned of the killings of LaKota, Alaska Natives, 500 murdered missing Indigenous women in Western Canada, homeless, prostitutes, immigrants, the most marginalized and voiceless, it goes on and on and on . . . Few people know about these killings, the ongoing amerikan genocide, and fewer care. I feel deeply compelled to do what I can to address such atrocity as long as I have breath.
I will be driving the mother of one of the murdered young women on the caravan. It will be an honor. We will leave Seattle October 19 and stop along the way in Portland, Eugene, Eureka, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, L.A., Phoneix, Tucson. . . The caravan ends in El Paso on Oct. 30.
A separate human rights delegation will then happen in Juarez to meet victims' families and see the sites where the bodies have been found.
I am working on a book about these issues and how they connect to the military, colonialism, racism, sexism, classism and the predator mentality that is plaguing our planet and the children's future. I feel it is very critical for my daughter Taina's education to know about this situation. Too many children are abducted, raped, murdered to pretend we live in a safe society. Too many of my older daughter's friends have died by drug overdose or suicide. Too many young women I know have been raped by their own fathers or molested by friends. It is a major in-the-closet problem that we cannot afford to ignore, so with all my heart and soul, i am doing what i can to equip Taina to cope with the reality we are all impacted by. Ignoring it doesn't solve a thing.
I hope to raise the $800 to cover both Taina and I on the human rights delegation. Our gas and oil will be covered by MSN as I am driving my van.
I pray the Goddess will bless this journey to support the families of murdered young women, to honor those killed, to demand effective action from the Mexican government and to halt these atrocities immediately.
Below is the email that called me to the caravan.
Ramona is the person I am driving
Jessica Marques, Mexico Solidarity Network
In the border city of Juarez, the number of women who have been murdered has grown from three a year to three a month since the passing of NAFTA.
In those ten years, over 380 women have been violently murdered in Juarez, and hundreds are not yet found.
San Francisco October 24
(see schedule below). $5 donation requested. For more information about the caravans, go to:
http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/juarezcaravans.html
For more information contact:
Graciela Trevisan, New College, 415/437-3414 Helene Vosters, New College, 415/437-3408 Jessica Marques, Mexico Solidarity Network, 415/621-8100 or
jess@mexicosolidarity.org
Related upcoming events:
October 24, 7:00pm -- New College of California, (Room, TBA) International Caravan for Justice in Juarez and Chihuahua stop in San Francisco. Speakers include:
Mrs. Ramona Morales is the mother of Silvia Elena Rivera Morales, a young woman killed in 1995. In the nine years since the murder of her daughter, Ramona has lost hope in justice. Her suffering does not end, remembering the murder and torture of her daughter and the loss of her husband, father of Silvia Elena who died only two months after Silvia Elena's death.
Days after Silvia's dissapearance, two police officers came to Ramona's home to take her to the morgue to identify the cadaver of her daughter, but alone, and without the embrace of loved ones, she could not face the pain and she could not believe that the body in front of her was her beloved daughter, yet she immediatley recognized that Silvia Elena was there, dead, beaten and mutilated. That day, Ramona had to beg for money in the street in order to return home, as the police who brought her to the morgue were unwilling to drive her home. Aggravating her suffering, the police issued defamatory declarations about her daughter to the press, justifiying her death by saying that she was a prostitute, which, as in other cases, was a lie.
Ramona, a 65 year old woman, struggles tirelessly, in spite of her illnesses and emotional and physical exhaustion, and the permanent pain that does not diminish after many years. She continues seeking justice in the hope that not only will the authorities shed light on the assasination of Silvia Elena, but will also retract the defamatory declarations made against her daughter.
US Speaker (TBA)