Super – State of Chihuahua – North Mexico
There is nothing in the city of Juárez that makes it worth visiting. Not unless you’re a businessman, a police officer or a reporter…
And here’s the monument which the local municipality installed at the city gates, to bring in the new millennium. Next to it, the people of Juárez have placed something else: pink crosses in the middle of the desert…
Exandas presents
A documentary by George Avgeropoulos
Director of Photography – George Sotiropoulos
Research – Petros Koublis/Thomas Eckert
Editing Director – Dimitris Nikolopoulos
Producer Manager - Anastasia Skoubri
THE CITY OF DEAD WOMEN
(Radio speech by Commandante Marcos)
“We fight for justice, at a time when the government is full of criminals and murderers. Shelter, land, work, peace, health, education, independence, democracy, freedom…These were our demands in the darkness of the past 500 years. These are our demands today.”
With its 1.5 million inhabitants, the city of Juárez is one of the largest cities in Mexico. It is right on the United States border. This bridge links it with El Paso, Texas.
Pink crosses of all sizes litter the city.
“Have you seen this woman?”
All over the city, these pictures of missing women silently call out. They hound the conscience of passers-by, but these people are immune to the sight and quickly move on.
The same crime has been perpetrated in Juárez for years. It is a crime characterized by unspeakable cruelty, and incomprehensible tolerance on the part of the Mexican state.
Super – scenes of brutality follow
In the last ten years, hundreds of women, residents of this city, have turned up dead, brutally murdered, dumped in the desert. In many cases, they’ve been raped, strangled and mutilated by their killers and picked over by jackals.
Most are poor girls, young and attractive, who worked for a pittance in the city’s factories, the maquiladoras.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
These women are singled out. They have been selected to meet this fate, this death.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
Why? Why does this not happen in other cities? Why only in Ciudad Juárez?
Welcome to Anapra, the poorest district of the city.
There are no public utilities here, no drinking water, drainage, or telephones. Only dirt streets and shacks.
Paola Flores Bonilla, victim’s mother
My daughter was a victim of the murderers who operate here in Ciudad Juárez. She vanished on April 18, 1998.
The police give all relatives the same story. That she was out with her boyfriend. This is the argument put forward by the authorities. But our daughter went nowhere without our permission. She came straight home from the maquila.
Her body was discovered 14 days later, in an area known as Loma Blanca.
They found her by coincidence. A taxi driver had been murdered at the same place, burnt to death inside his cab. People had gathered to watch, and two of them found her as they were leaving.
- What did the police say? What was the cause of her death?
It was very brutal. Simply brutal, the way they killed her. The same way as in all the other crimes.
They are powerful people. People with money and power. If they had been mere vandals, or gangs of youths, they would have already been arrested.
Super - Seventeen year-old Maria Sagrario was strangled.
Super - She was found raped and mutilated. One of her breasts had been cut off, and one of her ovaries had been removed.
These people have no conscience. I cannot call them human, because they are not human. These are little girls they kill, and they shouldn’t be killing the most evil woman in the world in this way.
I don’t know why all this happened. I would have preferred my daughter to have lived in any other part of the world. I don’t know why this happens.
“The victims of capital live in the maquiladoras”
From the hills, residents of this shantytown gaze upon the skyscrapers of El Paso, shining in the sun.
The shacks surrounding Juárez, stretch all the way to the border.
American trains full of wealth and goods pass a matter of yards from the homes made of tin and paper. In the old days, the locals would occasionally rob them.
Male resident
This place makes you want to pick up and go across, just in case life is better over there. To spend some time in the United States and send money back here. Here, their money is worth something.
Woman
There’s a lot of violence on the border. Haven’t you seen all the girls that get murdered all the time?
A fence divides the two countries. At this spot, it stops abruptly.
At least not legally…
“No one is illegal” / “There are no illegal immigrants”??
Luis Guerrero, the outlaw
Jose Carlos, the crocodile
Martin Roque, the madman
Victor Perez Anadia, the famous octopus
Meet the Desert Foxes.
All of them live in Anapra, the shantytown. They’re manual laborers who work in the factories.
The Desert Foxes have turned their cars into patrol vehicles, paying for fuel out of their own pockets. Using a radio system they received as a gift, the Foxes are volunteers that patrol the desert at night.
- Why do you do this, Juan?
- The idea came out of the need to have security in our community, since the authorities cannot provide it.
This is our system – those who work by day in the maquilas carry out their obligations at night, and those who work in the afternoon contribute by day.
The Foxes do their best to prevent the next murder from happening. They report anything suspicious they see.
The girls usually vanish on this route between the factory and their home.
Norma Andrade, victim’s mother
Alejandra disappeared on February 14, 2001. She would come home from work at 7, she worked in a maquiladora.
We went to the police station to report her disappearance. They told us that maybe she was with her boyfriend. What puzzled us was that if she had gone to her boyfriend’s house, she would have taken the children with her.
I remember going to the morgue with my husband. When I saw his face, I knew it was my daughter. I remember he came up to me, and just hugged me. I knew then it was my daughter.
Super – Alejandra’s body was found eight days after she disappeared. Her hands were tied. Her killers tortured her by breaking her bones, then raped and strangled her.
They are sick in the head, they enjoy causing pain to others. They get turned on by other peoples’ pain. The sense of dominating someone, seeing their fear. That’s the kind of people they are, and to be like that you have to have a lot of money. In this city, most respectable citizens with economic power are involved in the drug trade.
[Speaks into the phone]
Bring along a picture of your daughter, give them her description and information about where she was going and where she vanished. And send pictures to Marisella so that we can put them on the Internet. Be well, goodbye.
[Hangs up]
Is it what I’m thinking?
It’s what you’re thinking. Yes, they’ve just told me. It’s the schoolteacher’s girl.
Strange as it may sound, no one can tell with certainty how many women have been sacrificed to the dark god of Ciudad Juárez. The government talks about 340 cases, Amnesty International puts it at 370, and other human rights organizations estimate that there are almost 500 women missing or dead. That’s nearly three times the women killed in the last four years during the conflict in Palestine.
The real culprits remain unknown. And at liberty.
The murders began shortly after the maquiladoras arrived in Ciudad Juárez. Most were American owned factories for garment design and assembly that promised to create jobs, introduce new technology and bring foreign currency into the country.
This was the year the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, was signed. To cut costs, large multinational companies built factories in Ciudad Juárez to take advantage of cheap labor, low taxes and proximity to the United States. Ciudad Juárez filled with grey industrial parks and bedraggled migrants from all over Mexico looking for the land of plenty. Or at least for some work that would allow them to survive with dignity.
Super: 1994. The natives of the state of Chiapas rise against NAFTA. The Zapatistas rebels warn that the agreement will have dire consequences.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
According to Ciudad Juárez University, some 600 people arrive in the city every day. There are no homes for them, no medical care, no schools. They live somewhere in the desert, under appalling conditions. This causes them great misery.
Beatriz Lujan, labour re-education centre
All the people who lost their jobs in the southern part of the country come to this town. The Free Trade Agreement hit the fields of Mexico and small businesses the hardest.
Some 2 million farmers were left without land, and 20,000 Mexican companies shut down, unable to compete with the maquilas. The unemployed unemployed moved North to work in foreign factories, even for a pauper’s salary. Better to be exploited than to starve.
Beatriz Lujan, labour re-education centre
200,000 people live here without proper drainage. Half the city is without paved roads. All that the state and the government are interested in is attracting investors. The rest they leave aside.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
The human being doesn’t factor into their calculations. They are interested in highways, to make shorter routes so that they can transport their goods as fast as possible. Human beings don’t interest them.
You turn on the TV set, and you see a world that will never be. A world of fantasy, one that we see on soap operas, imported from the United States.
Globalization has opened the gates, but not for the poor.
Super – Ciudad Juárez is Mexico’s fifth richest city
Meet Cecilia Ochoa, the owner of this maquiladora. Her factory manufactures car seats for children, and diapers for dogs.
Mrs Ochoa says she cares deeply for her employees, without them she would have achieved nothing. Her factory employs 450 people. In addition to this one, she has another seven in Mexico, the United States, and China.
Cecilia Ochoa, maquiladora owner
-Why did you invest in Ciudad Juárez?
- I had three children to feed.
- Did cheap labour play a part in your decision?
- Yes, cheap labour was a factor initially, but not any more. A Mexican employee costs about 150 dollars a week. In China, on average, an employee costs 60 dollars a month.
The maquiladoras are migratory businesses. They can be dismantled and relocated to another country in one night, if that could boost profits. But Mrs Ochoa says she would never do that; firstly, because she is Mexican, and secondly because the border zone constitutes a competitive market. The only problem that tarnishes its image is the hundreds of unsolved murders of women who worked in those factories.
Cecilia Ochoa, maquiladora owner
Negative press affects business. Which company would want to come here when they hear about the murders?
- Were there any cases of murdered women from your factory?
- Thank heavens, no. I don’t know how I would react to something like that. Every maquiladora manager I’ve met feels deeply concerned by this issue. We not the CIA, the FBI or the local authorities, but it is a responsibility that we take very seriously.
Our first reaction was to tell every girl to carry a whistle.
Some 350 maquiladoras operate in Juárez, employing 250,000 people. Sixty percent of that workforce are women.
Employee 1
I’m afraid to go out alone, I don’t even go down the corner unless Carlos is there with me.
Employee 2
Yes, of course I’m scared. At that time of day there are no police patrols. There is no public security to help in case of need.
Work supervisors prefer to hire women, considering them more productive, more amenable to employers’ demands and inexperienced with unionization.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
A human resources manager said he would hire women, even though they gossip, spend more time talking and get pregnant, because they don’t form unions. That answer says it all.
The female workers face medieval conditions at work, including illegal dismissals, work schedule violations and poor safety measures. They are also forced to undergo pregnancy tests, both before they’re hired and after.
Super – Juan Carlos Olivares, vice-president of Ciudad Juárez’ Maquiladora Association
- Do you ask women to take pregnancy tests?
- Mexican labour law does not permit us to do so.
Super – Claudia Elisavet Inojos Torres, maquiladora worker
-I went to look for work on Monday, and they did it to me.
- What?
- The pregnancy test.
- Really?
- I went with a friend of mine. She was found to be pregnant, and they didn’t give her the job.
Juan Carlos Olivares, vice-president of Ciudad Juárez’ Maquiladora Association
-Are you at war with the worker unions?
-There are no unions in Ciudad Juárez. Unions come from the outside.
In the city of Juárez, activist groups give crash courses in labour law to the workers. The first issue to be raised was the safety of female workers, who have to walk the streets at night in order to get to work or go home. They’re an easy target for the unknown assailants. The maquiladoras agreed to provide buses to transport their staff.
Worker’s husband
I wait for her at this spot almost every night. They found a dead woman here the other day. And another man was recently murdered a short distance from here.
Super – Cotton field
Archival material, November 2001
The crime scene at Campo Algodonero
Super – Laura
Benita Monares, victim’s mother
She was 17 years old. She was going to be 18 in a month’s time. She had all the dreams of any youth her age. And someone came and cut her dreams short, as he did to those of the other girls. Someone who had no right to do so.
I wouldn’t want to know how much she suffered, and to learn how much I would suffer if I did know. I wouldn’t want to.
Super – Claudia
Josephina Gonzalez, victim’s mother
They took out the first girl, and Claudia was a bit further down, under a little bridge, next to a stream used to water the fields. She had handcuff marks on her hands. Some girls had been tied with tape, and others with whatever the killers could find.
Super – A total of eight girls were found buried at Campo Algodonero
She had no body tissue, no eyes, nothing. There was just a pile of bones.
Super – November 2004
Oscar Maines, coroner
We tried to dig up the bodies with great care. We were dealing with skeletons, and had to be careful to keep them from falling apart. We wanted to find evidence to help us in our investigation.
It is difficult to ascertain the exact cause of death, but from some characteristic signs we determined that they had been strangled.
They were all victims of the same gang. It’s too much of a coincidence for eight different murderers to have buried their victims in the same area, in the same position, one next to the other.
Super – The Gift
Benita Monares, victim’s mother
Six months later, on my birthday on March 21, they told me: “Do you want to see your daughter’s body?” I said: “Of course, why not? If this is my present, give it to me.”
I went to see it, and they showed me a body without skin. The bones had been washed. I accepted that the body belonged to my daughter, but I’m not so sure about it.
Super – Benita Monares had the remains cremated, and scattered the ashes in the Atlantic.
The authorities pinned this mass murder on two men known as Seal and Matchstick. Two poor bus drivers.
Ciudad Juárez correctional facility
Today we were to meet Matchstick inside the prison where he is serving his sentence.
El Sereso Penitentiary
The guards move Victor Garcia Uribe, which is Matchstick’s real name, to a clean room next to the administration office. Far from the stench of the prison’s underground cells, and the cries of his fellow inmates.
He says he’s innocent. He describes how the police stopped him one day on the street, dragged him out of his car by force, threatened to kill his wife and child, and took him with them. But they didn’t take him to a police station. They took him to a private house.
Victor Garcia Uribe, defendant
That’s when they started to hit me all over the face, and to kick me in the stomach and all over my body. One of them said: “Now you will be our echo. Now you will sing our song.”
They told me to tell them how I had killed the women. I didn’t understand, I didn’t know what they were talking about.
They started putting out cigarettes on my stomach and penis. They subjected me to electric shock. I told them that I would say whatever they wanted, just as long as they would stop beating me.
They kept on with the torture. They threw me to the floor. They pulled down my trousers again, threw water on me again and continued with their electric shock treatment.
Matchstick and Seal confessed to everything on camera. They confessed to having raped and killed all eight women in the cotton field.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
They showed the public a video which identified them as the killers. In it, they appear to be confessing. “Miss Guadelupe Luna Rosa? I kidnapped her a year ago. She was wearing black shoes, red stockings, and her trousers had shades of blue. She wore a black bow at the back of her hair.” You might ask: “How could the murderer possibly remember all this a year later?”
Josephina Gonzalez, victim’s mother
They produced the murderers in three days. They pinned everything on them. How did they know what clothes the girls were wearing, their names, where they worked? They put everything on a list, and had them recite it, how they kidnapped them and what they did to them. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not them that did it.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
It’s as if the murderers said: “Good day, Mrs Guadelupe. Have a seat. I’d like you to tell me your name, your surname, your father’s name and your mother’s name, so that I can keep everything well in memory. Just so I don’t forget a year later. In addition, let me take a good look at you, to see what your socks, shoes, trousers and shirt look like.
Victor Garcia Uribe, defendant
They took us to the prison clinic, and the doctor on duty told me to take off my clothes. When he saw the torture marks, he was frightened and said: “What manner of dogs did this to you?”
The prison doctors verified the detainees’ abuse in writing. The following day, the prison governor was dismissed by order of the government.
Word got out, and reporters began looking for the house where the kidnapped men had been tortured. When they found it, the results were stunning.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
Strangely enough, the reporters discovered that the house was, and still is, owned by police commissioner Castro Valles. That is to say, they were tortured in Castro Valles’ house.
At the time, commissioner Castro Valles was the head of Ciudad Juárez police.
He asked coroner Oscar Maines to plant false evidence in the case file, linking the two defendants to the murders. Mr Maines refused, resigned his job and left Juárez.
Oscar Maines, coroner
The order to fabricate evidence was delivered orally. That’s why nothing can be proven. This situation is linked to a political system we have dealt with for the past 80 years. It is a totalitarian system, under which the police are exclusively used for repression, not investigation.
Castro Valles was a law unto himself. When Seal’s lawyer, Mario Escobedo, became a nuisance he personally hunted him down and executed him in public, after a car chase. It was done without provocation, and in front of a crowd of witnesses.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
Mario was in constant communication with his father. He died holding his phone, and his father heard the shot that killed him. Mario had told him: “Dad, I’m being followed by officers of the judicial police. They’re shooting at me, they don’t want to arrest me, they want to kill me.” At some point Mario’s father heard him say: “Dad, they got me. Say goodbye to mother.” And then he heard a car collision and commissioner Valles’ cries. He was shouting, “We got you, you asshole son of a bitch.” They shot him at point-blank range, and his head exploded.
Castro Valles later explained his actions by saying that the lawyer had fired on his men first.
Luckily, a reporter from Norte daily managed to take a picture of the police car at the scene of the crime that night. It carries no bullet marks anywhere. A second picture was taken the following morning.
Bizarrely, in this picture there is a bullet hole at the front of the vehicle, on the right-hand side. That hole did not exist the previous night.
Matchstick is currently serving a 50-year prison sentence. He’s lucky to have his own cell. Half of El Sereso’s 3,800 inmates sleep in the corridors because of a lack of space. Matchstick has stockpiled supplies brought by friends and relatives, because inmates in this prison have to pay for their own food.
His cellmate and fellow accused, Seal, died mysteriously in prison during what was called ‘a routine operation’.
Victor Garcia Uribe, defendant
What I think, since I lived with him, is that he wasn’t sick. He wasn’t sick.
Commissioner Castro Valles was promoted, and now serves in the capital. He keeps reporters at a distance.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
Nobody bothered these people. They didn’t even lose their firearms.
Victor Garcia Uribe’s case reached the United Nations. Human rights groups cite the case as an example of Mexico’s failing justice system.
It’s this corrupt system that’s called upon to solve the mysterious murders of hundreds of women, which haunts the city of Juárez and shames the entire country.
The investigations are still at an early stage, but the murders continue, even though a decade has passed.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
Impunity is the greatest sin in this city.
Paola Flores Bonilla, victim’s mother
No one is found responsible, there are no culprits.
Josephina Gonzalez, victim’s mother
They’re not going to do anything about it, nothing…
In 2002, pressured by protest marches that demanded justice for the maquiladora workers, the federal government finally decided to deal with the issue in a serious manner. In a symbolic gesture, President Vicente Fox - formerly a senior official at Coca-Cola’s Mexico subsidiary - sent two women to distant Ciudad Juárez – a prosecutor and a commissioner. Their investigation yielded impressive results.
Morfin Otero, government commissioner
Unfortunately, I must tell you that the failure to punish these murders is linked to the fact that neither the prosecuting authorities nor the local courts have worked efficiently, and with honesty.
Maria Lopez Urbina, general prosecutor
We found 81 infractions committed by state officials, among them lawyers, police officers and ministry staff
What kind of infractions?
On one occasion, a flood destroyed some case files, and damaged others to the point that they had to be thrown away. On another occasion, an employee lit a fire to warm himself using case files for tinder. With this sort of treatment reserved for files that have to do with the life and death of young girls, can we really expect that these people will actually investigate the cases?
There’s a growing list of mistakes, omissions, and of evidence being destroyed. Is it a case of inefficiency and sloppiness, as the government alleges? Or are the authorities themselves covering for the real culprits?
Benita Manares, victim’s mother
I told them, “I want evidence to be found.” And they said, “If you were to find evidence, someone would remove it behind your back. If your daughter is well now, something will happen to her due to the evidence you unearth.”
Norma Andrade, victim’s mother
When I asked them for pictures of the body’s discovery and the autopsy, they had the nerve to tell me that the film was exposed to light and ruined. The strange thing is that the camera used was a digital one.
Paola Flores Bonilla, victim’s mother
It’s not that they can’t solve this problem. It’s that they don’t want to.
The entire area close to the bridge linking Juárez to El Paso is full of nightclubs, hotels and brothels. On Saturday nights, Americans cross the border using just their IDs to spend a few hours of enjoyment here. There’s something for everyone: cheap sex, alcohol, guns, drugs, stolen goods, anything.
Executions and vendetta-style killings are common-place on the city streets.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
There are 60-70 executions here in the space of a few days. Deaths are counted by the hour.
The world’s second largest drugs cartel after Medellín in Colombia is based in Juárez. Its founder, Amado Carillo Fuentes, used to transport tonnes of cocaine to the United States using a fleet of 22 Boeing 727’s.
With his pioneering Boeing shipments, Amado Carillo aptly carried the title of ‘the lord of the skies’. His fortune exceeded $25 billion. He is believed to have died ingloriously in July 1997 during a plastic surgery operation, trying to change his appearance to evade the American secret service. His men executed the doctors, and Carillo’s younger brother Vicente took over the cartel’s leadership.
Vicente now lives freely in Juárez in this neighborhood, where filming is not allowed.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer (off-camera)
There are names in Ciudad Juárez that you cannot even speak of, because it would mean your death. Not even the governor, or the president of the Republic will utter them. Here the masters of the drugs trade can live in perfect health. This is the most important drugs crossing in the world.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
There are 500 gangs in Ciudad Juárez, composed of men who have been involved in illegal activity since the age of 10. These people aren’t prepared to work for 40 dollars. They would rather work for a drug baron who would pay 500 dollars for a shipment.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
These young girls were murdered by people connected with the drug trade.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
It is a kind of game for them, a form of sport.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
The girls are used by the drug gangs as temporary escorts for 2-3 months. They are allowed access to their hideouts.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
They are raped and killed, and torture is frequently employed.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
This is the truth that cannot be told, the secret tale of the women of Ciudad Juárez.
This is the dominant theory regarding the murder of women in City of Juárez. It also explains why no culprits have ever been found during all these years.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
The local government is up to the neck in commitments to the drug barons. And the federal government has agreed to give them a wide berth. Even under these circumstances.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
The drug trade has a turnover of millions of dollars. They can purchase the services of any badly-paid police officer, such that our police officers are.
Hugo Almada, sociology professor
There are truly disgraceful cases that continue to turn up. Such as the case of the so-called ‘drug pit’.
The drug pit was a mass grave of people who had been tortured and executed with a single bullet in the head. It was later discovered that the murders had been carried out by police officers. They acted as hired killers, eliminating undesirables on behalf of Juárez cartel.
Hugo Almada, sociology professor
What we have is a situation whereby the police not only encourage the flow of drugs, which is something we could expect, but they are also part of the organization, and operate as the drug traders’ hired guns.
Morfin Otero, government commissioner
If this is not corruption, and collusion with organized crime, I don’t know what else could be labeled corruption.
A new term was coined to describe what is happening in Ciudad Juárez – femicidios, the murder of women.
The murders are committed by more than one person. Impunity, Corruption and Poverty rank among the culprits. A whole system sees a vulnerable population as expendable, much like a trade commodity.
The gang members, the rapists and even a husband who turns violent at home are the children of this system.
The victims of capital live in the maquiladoras.
Woman
We were at home. We were about to eat, and I sent her to fetch a soft drink, but she never came back.
Super – Verenice, age 6
Juana Rodriguez Bermudes, victim’s mother
They stole her from me at the store, and she didn’t return until the judicial police brought her back to me. They brought her back to me dead, raped and stabbed.
They were so barbarous to my daughter. It’s not just inhuman, it’s beastly. She was innocent. She didn’t know anything.
Ciudad Juárez – The City of Dead Women
For more information: http://exandas.ert.gr
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Written, Produced and Directed by GEORGE AVGEROPOULOS
Director of Photography: GEORGE SOTIROPOULOS
Editing Director: DIMITRIS NIKOLOPOULOS
Research Coordinator: APOSTOLIS KAPAROUDAKIS
Producer Manager: ANASTASIA SKOUBRI
Research: PETROS KOUBLIS, MANOLIS FILAKTIDIS
Mexico Research/Fixing: THOMAS ECKERT
GEORGE AVGEROPOULOS
Ciudad Juárez Driver: MIGUEL PERREA
Editing: DIMITRIS NIKOLOPOULOS, YIANNIS BILIRIS
Narration: ROBERT MCKENZIE
Translation: MANOLIS FILAKTIDIS, JOHN HADOULIS
Graphics: ONYX
Technical Support: ANDREAS SOULIOS
NIKOS REVENIDIS
The producers wish to thank:
XHIJ TV Ciudad Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and reporter Edgar Roman for the file footage.
Norte daily newspaper and photojournalist Miguel Perrea for the pictures.
Actress Calliope Tataki for her impersonation of female victims in the re-enactment scenes, and all the friends who took part in the filming of this documentary.
Music by
The Earthbound
Take the Money and Run
A Small Planet Production
For Net Television, Copyright 2004-2005
There is nothing in the city of Juárez that makes it worth visiting. Not unless you’re a businessman, a police officer or a reporter…
And here’s the monument which the local municipality installed at the city gates, to bring in the new millennium. Next to it, the people of Juárez have placed something else: pink crosses in the middle of the desert…
Exandas presents
A documentary by George Avgeropoulos
Director of Photography – George Sotiropoulos
Research – Petros Koublis/Thomas Eckert
Editing Director – Dimitris Nikolopoulos
Producer Manager - Anastasia Skoubri
THE CITY OF DEAD WOMEN
(Radio speech by Commandante Marcos)
“We fight for justice, at a time when the government is full of criminals and murderers. Shelter, land, work, peace, health, education, independence, democracy, freedom…These were our demands in the darkness of the past 500 years. These are our demands today.”
With its 1.5 million inhabitants, the city of Juárez is one of the largest cities in Mexico. It is right on the United States border. This bridge links it with El Paso, Texas.
Pink crosses of all sizes litter the city.
“Have you seen this woman?”
All over the city, these pictures of missing women silently call out. They hound the conscience of passers-by, but these people are immune to the sight and quickly move on.
The same crime has been perpetrated in Juárez for years. It is a crime characterized by unspeakable cruelty, and incomprehensible tolerance on the part of the Mexican state.
Super – scenes of brutality follow
In the last ten years, hundreds of women, residents of this city, have turned up dead, brutally murdered, dumped in the desert. In many cases, they’ve been raped, strangled and mutilated by their killers and picked over by jackals.
Most are poor girls, young and attractive, who worked for a pittance in the city’s factories, the maquiladoras.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
These women are singled out. They have been selected to meet this fate, this death.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
Why? Why does this not happen in other cities? Why only in Ciudad Juárez?
Welcome to Anapra, the poorest district of the city.
There are no public utilities here, no drinking water, drainage, or telephones. Only dirt streets and shacks.
Paola Flores Bonilla, victim’s mother
My daughter was a victim of the murderers who operate here in Ciudad Juárez. She vanished on April 18, 1998.
The police give all relatives the same story. That she was out with her boyfriend. This is the argument put forward by the authorities. But our daughter went nowhere without our permission. She came straight home from the maquila.
Her body was discovered 14 days later, in an area known as Loma Blanca.
They found her by coincidence. A taxi driver had been murdered at the same place, burnt to death inside his cab. People had gathered to watch, and two of them found her as they were leaving.
- What did the police say? What was the cause of her death?
It was very brutal. Simply brutal, the way they killed her. The same way as in all the other crimes.
They are powerful people. People with money and power. If they had been mere vandals, or gangs of youths, they would have already been arrested.
Super - Seventeen year-old Maria Sagrario was strangled.
Super - She was found raped and mutilated. One of her breasts had been cut off, and one of her ovaries had been removed.
These people have no conscience. I cannot call them human, because they are not human. These are little girls they kill, and they shouldn’t be killing the most evil woman in the world in this way.
I don’t know why all this happened. I would have preferred my daughter to have lived in any other part of the world. I don’t know why this happens.
“The victims of capital live in the maquiladoras”
From the hills, residents of this shantytown gaze upon the skyscrapers of El Paso, shining in the sun.
The shacks surrounding Juárez, stretch all the way to the border.
American trains full of wealth and goods pass a matter of yards from the homes made of tin and paper. In the old days, the locals would occasionally rob them.
Male resident
This place makes you want to pick up and go across, just in case life is better over there. To spend some time in the United States and send money back here. Here, their money is worth something.
Woman
There’s a lot of violence on the border. Haven’t you seen all the girls that get murdered all the time?
A fence divides the two countries. At this spot, it stops abruptly.
At least not legally…
“No one is illegal” / “There are no illegal immigrants”??
Luis Guerrero, the outlaw
Jose Carlos, the crocodile
Martin Roque, the madman
Victor Perez Anadia, the famous octopus
Meet the Desert Foxes.
All of them live in Anapra, the shantytown. They’re manual laborers who work in the factories.
The Desert Foxes have turned their cars into patrol vehicles, paying for fuel out of their own pockets. Using a radio system they received as a gift, the Foxes are volunteers that patrol the desert at night.
- Why do you do this, Juan?
- The idea came out of the need to have security in our community, since the authorities cannot provide it.
This is our system – those who work by day in the maquilas carry out their obligations at night, and those who work in the afternoon contribute by day.
The Foxes do their best to prevent the next murder from happening. They report anything suspicious they see.
The girls usually vanish on this route between the factory and their home.
Norma Andrade, victim’s mother
Alejandra disappeared on February 14, 2001. She would come home from work at 7, she worked in a maquiladora.
We went to the police station to report her disappearance. They told us that maybe she was with her boyfriend. What puzzled us was that if she had gone to her boyfriend’s house, she would have taken the children with her.
I remember going to the morgue with my husband. When I saw his face, I knew it was my daughter. I remember he came up to me, and just hugged me. I knew then it was my daughter.
Super – Alejandra’s body was found eight days after she disappeared. Her hands were tied. Her killers tortured her by breaking her bones, then raped and strangled her.
They are sick in the head, they enjoy causing pain to others. They get turned on by other peoples’ pain. The sense of dominating someone, seeing their fear. That’s the kind of people they are, and to be like that you have to have a lot of money. In this city, most respectable citizens with economic power are involved in the drug trade.
[Speaks into the phone]
Bring along a picture of your daughter, give them her description and information about where she was going and where she vanished. And send pictures to Marisella so that we can put them on the Internet. Be well, goodbye.
[Hangs up]
Is it what I’m thinking?
It’s what you’re thinking. Yes, they’ve just told me. It’s the schoolteacher’s girl.
Strange as it may sound, no one can tell with certainty how many women have been sacrificed to the dark god of Ciudad Juárez. The government talks about 340 cases, Amnesty International puts it at 370, and other human rights organizations estimate that there are almost 500 women missing or dead. That’s nearly three times the women killed in the last four years during the conflict in Palestine.
The real culprits remain unknown. And at liberty.
The murders began shortly after the maquiladoras arrived in Ciudad Juárez. Most were American owned factories for garment design and assembly that promised to create jobs, introduce new technology and bring foreign currency into the country.
This was the year the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, was signed. To cut costs, large multinational companies built factories in Ciudad Juárez to take advantage of cheap labor, low taxes and proximity to the United States. Ciudad Juárez filled with grey industrial parks and bedraggled migrants from all over Mexico looking for the land of plenty. Or at least for some work that would allow them to survive with dignity.
Super: 1994. The natives of the state of Chiapas rise against NAFTA. The Zapatistas rebels warn that the agreement will have dire consequences.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
According to Ciudad Juárez University, some 600 people arrive in the city every day. There are no homes for them, no medical care, no schools. They live somewhere in the desert, under appalling conditions. This causes them great misery.
Beatriz Lujan, labour re-education centre
All the people who lost their jobs in the southern part of the country come to this town. The Free Trade Agreement hit the fields of Mexico and small businesses the hardest.
Some 2 million farmers were left without land, and 20,000 Mexican companies shut down, unable to compete with the maquilas. The unemployed unemployed moved North to work in foreign factories, even for a pauper’s salary. Better to be exploited than to starve.
Beatriz Lujan, labour re-education centre
200,000 people live here without proper drainage. Half the city is without paved roads. All that the state and the government are interested in is attracting investors. The rest they leave aside.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
The human being doesn’t factor into their calculations. They are interested in highways, to make shorter routes so that they can transport their goods as fast as possible. Human beings don’t interest them.
You turn on the TV set, and you see a world that will never be. A world of fantasy, one that we see on soap operas, imported from the United States.
Globalization has opened the gates, but not for the poor.
Super – Ciudad Juárez is Mexico’s fifth richest city
Meet Cecilia Ochoa, the owner of this maquiladora. Her factory manufactures car seats for children, and diapers for dogs.
Mrs Ochoa says she cares deeply for her employees, without them she would have achieved nothing. Her factory employs 450 people. In addition to this one, she has another seven in Mexico, the United States, and China.
Cecilia Ochoa, maquiladora owner
-Why did you invest in Ciudad Juárez?
- I had three children to feed.
- Did cheap labour play a part in your decision?
- Yes, cheap labour was a factor initially, but not any more. A Mexican employee costs about 150 dollars a week. In China, on average, an employee costs 60 dollars a month.
The maquiladoras are migratory businesses. They can be dismantled and relocated to another country in one night, if that could boost profits. But Mrs Ochoa says she would never do that; firstly, because she is Mexican, and secondly because the border zone constitutes a competitive market. The only problem that tarnishes its image is the hundreds of unsolved murders of women who worked in those factories.
Cecilia Ochoa, maquiladora owner
Negative press affects business. Which company would want to come here when they hear about the murders?
- Were there any cases of murdered women from your factory?
- Thank heavens, no. I don’t know how I would react to something like that. Every maquiladora manager I’ve met feels deeply concerned by this issue. We not the CIA, the FBI or the local authorities, but it is a responsibility that we take very seriously.
Our first reaction was to tell every girl to carry a whistle.
Some 350 maquiladoras operate in Juárez, employing 250,000 people. Sixty percent of that workforce are women.
Employee 1
I’m afraid to go out alone, I don’t even go down the corner unless Carlos is there with me.
Employee 2
Yes, of course I’m scared. At that time of day there are no police patrols. There is no public security to help in case of need.
Work supervisors prefer to hire women, considering them more productive, more amenable to employers’ demands and inexperienced with unionization.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
A human resources manager said he would hire women, even though they gossip, spend more time talking and get pregnant, because they don’t form unions. That answer says it all.
The female workers face medieval conditions at work, including illegal dismissals, work schedule violations and poor safety measures. They are also forced to undergo pregnancy tests, both before they’re hired and after.
Super – Juan Carlos Olivares, vice-president of Ciudad Juárez’ Maquiladora Association
- Do you ask women to take pregnancy tests?
- Mexican labour law does not permit us to do so.
Super – Claudia Elisavet Inojos Torres, maquiladora worker
-I went to look for work on Monday, and they did it to me.
- What?
- The pregnancy test.
- Really?
- I went with a friend of mine. She was found to be pregnant, and they didn’t give her the job.
Juan Carlos Olivares, vice-president of Ciudad Juárez’ Maquiladora Association
-Are you at war with the worker unions?
-There are no unions in Ciudad Juárez. Unions come from the outside.
In the city of Juárez, activist groups give crash courses in labour law to the workers. The first issue to be raised was the safety of female workers, who have to walk the streets at night in order to get to work or go home. They’re an easy target for the unknown assailants. The maquiladoras agreed to provide buses to transport their staff.
Worker’s husband
I wait for her at this spot almost every night. They found a dead woman here the other day. And another man was recently murdered a short distance from here.
Super – Cotton field
Archival material, November 2001
The crime scene at Campo Algodonero
Super – Laura
Benita Monares, victim’s mother
She was 17 years old. She was going to be 18 in a month’s time. She had all the dreams of any youth her age. And someone came and cut her dreams short, as he did to those of the other girls. Someone who had no right to do so.
I wouldn’t want to know how much she suffered, and to learn how much I would suffer if I did know. I wouldn’t want to.
Super – Claudia
Josephina Gonzalez, victim’s mother
They took out the first girl, and Claudia was a bit further down, under a little bridge, next to a stream used to water the fields. She had handcuff marks on her hands. Some girls had been tied with tape, and others with whatever the killers could find.
Super – A total of eight girls were found buried at Campo Algodonero
She had no body tissue, no eyes, nothing. There was just a pile of bones.
Super – November 2004
Oscar Maines, coroner
We tried to dig up the bodies with great care. We were dealing with skeletons, and had to be careful to keep them from falling apart. We wanted to find evidence to help us in our investigation.
It is difficult to ascertain the exact cause of death, but from some characteristic signs we determined that they had been strangled.
They were all victims of the same gang. It’s too much of a coincidence for eight different murderers to have buried their victims in the same area, in the same position, one next to the other.
Super – The Gift
Benita Monares, victim’s mother
Six months later, on my birthday on March 21, they told me: “Do you want to see your daughter’s body?” I said: “Of course, why not? If this is my present, give it to me.”
I went to see it, and they showed me a body without skin. The bones had been washed. I accepted that the body belonged to my daughter, but I’m not so sure about it.
Super – Benita Monares had the remains cremated, and scattered the ashes in the Atlantic.
The authorities pinned this mass murder on two men known as Seal and Matchstick. Two poor bus drivers.
Ciudad Juárez correctional facility
Today we were to meet Matchstick inside the prison where he is serving his sentence.
El Sereso Penitentiary
The guards move Victor Garcia Uribe, which is Matchstick’s real name, to a clean room next to the administration office. Far from the stench of the prison’s underground cells, and the cries of his fellow inmates.
He says he’s innocent. He describes how the police stopped him one day on the street, dragged him out of his car by force, threatened to kill his wife and child, and took him with them. But they didn’t take him to a police station. They took him to a private house.
Victor Garcia Uribe, defendant
That’s when they started to hit me all over the face, and to kick me in the stomach and all over my body. One of them said: “Now you will be our echo. Now you will sing our song.”
They told me to tell them how I had killed the women. I didn’t understand, I didn’t know what they were talking about.
They started putting out cigarettes on my stomach and penis. They subjected me to electric shock. I told them that I would say whatever they wanted, just as long as they would stop beating me.
They kept on with the torture. They threw me to the floor. They pulled down my trousers again, threw water on me again and continued with their electric shock treatment.
Matchstick and Seal confessed to everything on camera. They confessed to having raped and killed all eight women in the cotton field.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
They showed the public a video which identified them as the killers. In it, they appear to be confessing. “Miss Guadelupe Luna Rosa? I kidnapped her a year ago. She was wearing black shoes, red stockings, and her trousers had shades of blue. She wore a black bow at the back of her hair.” You might ask: “How could the murderer possibly remember all this a year later?”
Josephina Gonzalez, victim’s mother
They produced the murderers in three days. They pinned everything on them. How did they know what clothes the girls were wearing, their names, where they worked? They put everything on a list, and had them recite it, how they kidnapped them and what they did to them. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not them that did it.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
It’s as if the murderers said: “Good day, Mrs Guadelupe. Have a seat. I’d like you to tell me your name, your surname, your father’s name and your mother’s name, so that I can keep everything well in memory. Just so I don’t forget a year later. In addition, let me take a good look at you, to see what your socks, shoes, trousers and shirt look like.
Victor Garcia Uribe, defendant
They took us to the prison clinic, and the doctor on duty told me to take off my clothes. When he saw the torture marks, he was frightened and said: “What manner of dogs did this to you?”
The prison doctors verified the detainees’ abuse in writing. The following day, the prison governor was dismissed by order of the government.
Word got out, and reporters began looking for the house where the kidnapped men had been tortured. When they found it, the results were stunning.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
Strangely enough, the reporters discovered that the house was, and still is, owned by police commissioner Castro Valles. That is to say, they were tortured in Castro Valles’ house.
At the time, commissioner Castro Valles was the head of Ciudad Juárez police.
He asked coroner Oscar Maines to plant false evidence in the case file, linking the two defendants to the murders. Mr Maines refused, resigned his job and left Juárez.
Oscar Maines, coroner
The order to fabricate evidence was delivered orally. That’s why nothing can be proven. This situation is linked to a political system we have dealt with for the past 80 years. It is a totalitarian system, under which the police are exclusively used for repression, not investigation.
Castro Valles was a law unto himself. When Seal’s lawyer, Mario Escobedo, became a nuisance he personally hunted him down and executed him in public, after a car chase. It was done without provocation, and in front of a crowd of witnesses.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
Mario was in constant communication with his father. He died holding his phone, and his father heard the shot that killed him. Mario had told him: “Dad, I’m being followed by officers of the judicial police. They’re shooting at me, they don’t want to arrest me, they want to kill me.” At some point Mario’s father heard him say: “Dad, they got me. Say goodbye to mother.” And then he heard a car collision and commissioner Valles’ cries. He was shouting, “We got you, you asshole son of a bitch.” They shot him at point-blank range, and his head exploded.
Castro Valles later explained his actions by saying that the lawyer had fired on his men first.
Luckily, a reporter from Norte daily managed to take a picture of the police car at the scene of the crime that night. It carries no bullet marks anywhere. A second picture was taken the following morning.
Bizarrely, in this picture there is a bullet hole at the front of the vehicle, on the right-hand side. That hole did not exist the previous night.
Matchstick is currently serving a 50-year prison sentence. He’s lucky to have his own cell. Half of El Sereso’s 3,800 inmates sleep in the corridors because of a lack of space. Matchstick has stockpiled supplies brought by friends and relatives, because inmates in this prison have to pay for their own food.
His cellmate and fellow accused, Seal, died mysteriously in prison during what was called ‘a routine operation’.
Victor Garcia Uribe, defendant
What I think, since I lived with him, is that he wasn’t sick. He wasn’t sick.
Commissioner Castro Valles was promoted, and now serves in the capital. He keeps reporters at a distance.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
Nobody bothered these people. They didn’t even lose their firearms.
Victor Garcia Uribe’s case reached the United Nations. Human rights groups cite the case as an example of Mexico’s failing justice system.
It’s this corrupt system that’s called upon to solve the mysterious murders of hundreds of women, which haunts the city of Juárez and shames the entire country.
The investigations are still at an early stage, but the murders continue, even though a decade has passed.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
Impunity is the greatest sin in this city.
Paola Flores Bonilla, victim’s mother
No one is found responsible, there are no culprits.
Josephina Gonzalez, victim’s mother
They’re not going to do anything about it, nothing…
In 2002, pressured by protest marches that demanded justice for the maquiladora workers, the federal government finally decided to deal with the issue in a serious manner. In a symbolic gesture, President Vicente Fox - formerly a senior official at Coca-Cola’s Mexico subsidiary - sent two women to distant Ciudad Juárez – a prosecutor and a commissioner. Their investigation yielded impressive results.
Morfin Otero, government commissioner
Unfortunately, I must tell you that the failure to punish these murders is linked to the fact that neither the prosecuting authorities nor the local courts have worked efficiently, and with honesty.
Maria Lopez Urbina, general prosecutor
We found 81 infractions committed by state officials, among them lawyers, police officers and ministry staff
What kind of infractions?
On one occasion, a flood destroyed some case files, and damaged others to the point that they had to be thrown away. On another occasion, an employee lit a fire to warm himself using case files for tinder. With this sort of treatment reserved for files that have to do with the life and death of young girls, can we really expect that these people will actually investigate the cases?
There’s a growing list of mistakes, omissions, and of evidence being destroyed. Is it a case of inefficiency and sloppiness, as the government alleges? Or are the authorities themselves covering for the real culprits?
Benita Manares, victim’s mother
I told them, “I want evidence to be found.” And they said, “If you were to find evidence, someone would remove it behind your back. If your daughter is well now, something will happen to her due to the evidence you unearth.”
Norma Andrade, victim’s mother
When I asked them for pictures of the body’s discovery and the autopsy, they had the nerve to tell me that the film was exposed to light and ruined. The strange thing is that the camera used was a digital one.
Paola Flores Bonilla, victim’s mother
It’s not that they can’t solve this problem. It’s that they don’t want to.
The entire area close to the bridge linking Juárez to El Paso is full of nightclubs, hotels and brothels. On Saturday nights, Americans cross the border using just their IDs to spend a few hours of enjoyment here. There’s something for everyone: cheap sex, alcohol, guns, drugs, stolen goods, anything.
Executions and vendetta-style killings are common-place on the city streets.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
There are 60-70 executions here in the space of a few days. Deaths are counted by the hour.
The world’s second largest drugs cartel after Medellín in Colombia is based in Juárez. Its founder, Amado Carillo Fuentes, used to transport tonnes of cocaine to the United States using a fleet of 22 Boeing 727’s.
With his pioneering Boeing shipments, Amado Carillo aptly carried the title of ‘the lord of the skies’. His fortune exceeded $25 billion. He is believed to have died ingloriously in July 1997 during a plastic surgery operation, trying to change his appearance to evade the American secret service. His men executed the doctors, and Carillo’s younger brother Vicente took over the cartel’s leadership.
Vicente now lives freely in Juárez in this neighborhood, where filming is not allowed.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer (off-camera)
There are names in Ciudad Juárez that you cannot even speak of, because it would mean your death. Not even the governor, or the president of the Republic will utter them. Here the masters of the drugs trade can live in perfect health. This is the most important drugs crossing in the world.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
There are 500 gangs in Ciudad Juárez, composed of men who have been involved in illegal activity since the age of 10. These people aren’t prepared to work for 40 dollars. They would rather work for a drug baron who would pay 500 dollars for a shipment.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
These young girls were murdered by people connected with the drug trade.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
It is a kind of game for them, a form of sport.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
The girls are used by the drug gangs as temporary escorts for 2-3 months. They are allowed access to their hideouts.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
They are raped and killed, and torture is frequently employed.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
This is the truth that cannot be told, the secret tale of the women of Ciudad Juárez.
This is the dominant theory regarding the murder of women in City of Juárez. It also explains why no culprits have ever been found during all these years.
Dante Almaraz, lawyer
The local government is up to the neck in commitments to the drug barons. And the federal government has agreed to give them a wide berth. Even under these circumstances.
Esther Chavez, Casa Amiga
The drug trade has a turnover of millions of dollars. They can purchase the services of any badly-paid police officer, such that our police officers are.
Hugo Almada, sociology professor
There are truly disgraceful cases that continue to turn up. Such as the case of the so-called ‘drug pit’.
The drug pit was a mass grave of people who had been tortured and executed with a single bullet in the head. It was later discovered that the murders had been carried out by police officers. They acted as hired killers, eliminating undesirables on behalf of Juárez cartel.
Hugo Almada, sociology professor
What we have is a situation whereby the police not only encourage the flow of drugs, which is something we could expect, but they are also part of the organization, and operate as the drug traders’ hired guns.
Morfin Otero, government commissioner
If this is not corruption, and collusion with organized crime, I don’t know what else could be labeled corruption.
A new term was coined to describe what is happening in Ciudad Juárez – femicidios, the murder of women.
The murders are committed by more than one person. Impunity, Corruption and Poverty rank among the culprits. A whole system sees a vulnerable population as expendable, much like a trade commodity.
The gang members, the rapists and even a husband who turns violent at home are the children of this system.
The victims of capital live in the maquiladoras.
Woman
We were at home. We were about to eat, and I sent her to fetch a soft drink, but she never came back.
Super – Verenice, age 6
Juana Rodriguez Bermudes, victim’s mother
They stole her from me at the store, and she didn’t return until the judicial police brought her back to me. They brought her back to me dead, raped and stabbed.
They were so barbarous to my daughter. It’s not just inhuman, it’s beastly. She was innocent. She didn’t know anything.
Ciudad Juárez – The City of Dead Women
For more information: http://exandas.ert.gr
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Written, Produced and Directed by GEORGE AVGEROPOULOS
Director of Photography: GEORGE SOTIROPOULOS
Editing Director: DIMITRIS NIKOLOPOULOS
Research Coordinator: APOSTOLIS KAPAROUDAKIS
Producer Manager: ANASTASIA SKOUBRI
Research: PETROS KOUBLIS, MANOLIS FILAKTIDIS
Mexico Research/Fixing: THOMAS ECKERT
GEORGE AVGEROPOULOS
Ciudad Juárez Driver: MIGUEL PERREA
Editing: DIMITRIS NIKOLOPOULOS, YIANNIS BILIRIS
Narration: ROBERT MCKENZIE
Translation: MANOLIS FILAKTIDIS, JOHN HADOULIS
Graphics: ONYX
Technical Support: ANDREAS SOULIOS
NIKOS REVENIDIS
The producers wish to thank:
XHIJ TV Ciudad Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and reporter Edgar Roman for the file footage.
Norte daily newspaper and photojournalist Miguel Perrea for the pictures.
Actress Calliope Tataki for her impersonation of female victims in the re-enactment scenes, and all the friends who took part in the filming of this documentary.
Music by
The Earthbound
Take the Money and Run
A Small Planet Production
For Net Television, Copyright 2004-2005