While the FBI is investigating who is in the recently found mass graves in Juárez, Mexico, the 200 women that have been brutally murdered in this border town since 1993 slowly sink into oblivion. Though it’s been more than six months since a female corpse has been found in the surrounding desert, the killings are not over, female activists say.
 

IN DOWNTOWN JUAREZ, there is a pink phone pole with a black cross on almost every corner. The painted poles symbolize a series of murders without precedent: since 1993, almost two hundred young and single women have been killed, raped, and dumped in the surrounding desert. Like factory worker Sagrario Gonzales Flores (17). One day she never returned from her afternoon shift. Two weeks later her body was found. She was stabbed three times in the chest, once in the back, then barehandedly strangled. A year and a half later, her sister Guillermina (22) has painted six hundred phone poles pink. "To honour the dead", she says. "And to warn the living." Because the facts of the matter remain misty, even though authorities were convinced to have captured the brain behind the murders when they arrested Egyptian chemist Abdel Latif Sharif in 1995. Sharif, who came to Juárez after being expelled by the United States for sexual offences, was arrested on a rape charge. In addition, he had been seen with at least five different girls who turned up dead later. But with the prime suspect behind bars, the murders in Juárez continued. The new killings were thought to be plotted by Sharif from inside his jail cell, in order to have an alibi. A year later, Mexican authorities arrested seven members of the street gang The Rebels, allegedly obeying the Egyptian’s orders. Together, they are being held responsible for the death of seventeen girls. Sharif, who always denied his involvement, is serving a thirty year sentence. But still the killings didn’t stop.

MEANWHILE, THE POLICE have other things on their minds. Juárez is part of an important transit route for cocaine from Colombia, and home to one of the most ruthless drug cartels in the world. Last week, two mass graves holding the bodies of possibly threehundred competing drug dealers and police informers have been discovered south of Juárez. The bodies are thought to be victims of the bloody power battle that erupted after cartel leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes mysteriously died in 1997, supposedly during plastic surgery. The graves were found after a tip by a former Mexican police officer striking a deal with the FBI, making it all the more probable even more corrupt agents are involved. To make matters worse, the vast majority of the six hundred street gangs or so are involved in the drugtrade as well.
So when on a sunny autumn day American customs in El Paso intercept a large quantity of cocaine and marijuana, almost instantly a drug war breaks out. The leader of los Ortizes, the biggest gang, is found dead in the trunk of his car. And in other parts of town, four more bodies pop up. Five murders in one day is excessive even for Juárez’ standards, and on Saturday night, eight police cars and patrol vans move up to the barrios, looking for guns and drugs. The slums are practically in the desert, for Juárez grows faster than city planners can keep pace. It is pitch dark. In the valley below, on the other side of the Rio Grande, the lights of El Paso sparkle in the night. Even though this is a joint operation by both the federal, state and the municipal police, there is not a lot the cops can do. They are only allowed to frisk people on the streets. And the parade of cars is so conspicuous that anyone with a bad conscience has plenty of time to sneak into a house. But the message is clear: the cops are still around.
Around midnight, when the gang sweep is over, Capitano Guerrero Cisneros Hernandos prepares for a routine tour through the center of town. Most of the problems he encounters are related to domestic violence. In one part of town three cops carry a man by his arms and legs out of a house. They have great difficulties folding him up. Finally, they shove him like a plank inside the police car. His girlfriend Hortensia is grateful. "He beat me", she says. "He is like that when he’s doing booze and pills." Later at the police station, Ana, dirty and grubby, breastfeeds her baby as she watches her boyfriend being led in. His shirt is torn from his body. Plain drunk, crying and desperate he has to get down on his knees, facing the wall. Then the police take him inside to sleep it off. He will probably be out in 36 hours. "He started to beat me up", Ana explains.
"It happens all the time", Hernandos sighs. "Especially late at night, when people have drunk too much. Domestic violence is a huge problem over here."

JUAREZ IS GOING THROUGH considerable social changes, says Esther Chávez Cano, working at Casa Amiga, a crisis center for women. For a great part, those changes are triggered by the explosive growth of the so-called maquiladoras or maquilas: twin factories of big western companies like Ford, General Electric and Philips, producing for the American market and cashing in on the low wages in Mexico. In twenty years time, the number of maquiladoras in Juárez increased from 75 to 320. "Every day more than six hundred people from all over Mexico come to Juárez", says Chávez. "And they’re all looking for work." By now in the border town, almost a quarter of a million people (one eighth of the population) work in the maquiladoras. And of them, 65 percent are women. Chávez: "In the countryside the woman has to rely on her husband. But the money she makes over here allows her to be much more independent. A lot of men can’t deal with that. They are frustrated and feel inferior because they’re not the only one putting food on the table anymore." For their part, the women can’t always handle their newly obtained freedom either. Chávez: "Day care centers barely exist over here. And with the parents constantly working, a lot of kids are looking for a subsitute to call home. Many of them end up in a gang. There are just as many street gangs as there are schools in Juárez and ten times as many bars."
Most maquila-women are single though. Chávez: "As they don’t want to share their salaries, they won’t get married. And a single woman holding a social position is unheard-of. There’s a lot of sexual discrimination here anyhow. For instance, in order to work in the maquila you have to prove you’re not pregnant. A couple of years ago the women had to bring their sanitary towels for that. That has been abandoned these days, but the girls still have to undergo a pregnancy test. In spite of all the changes Mexico is still a macho society. That’s also why there are more women than men working in the maquilas. Women are more submissive, and obidient. Men, for their part, want to have a physical job. To them, working the assembly line is an insult to their manliness."
In this confusing mixture of traditional values and modern developments it is not surprising so few women have stepped forward after having survived an attack, says Chávez. "In the minds of a lot of men, the women provoked the assault herself by wearing a short skirt. Besides, being raped not only affects the girl, but the whole family as well. People start thinking of her as a prostitute: unmarried, yet not a virgin anymore." Until now, only two women have had the courage to step forward. One of them is extremenly vulnerable, Chávez says. "We’ve put her in a safe place and started treating her with therapy."

THE OTHER ONE IS fifteen years old and still a child. Last March, Nancy Gonzáles Vásquez was only working for two weeks in the maquila when the busdriver who daily took her to and from work beat her unconsious, raped her, choked her and left her for dead in the desert. In the dark of night she woke up bleeding, not knowing where she was. She stumbled to the highway where a passer-by found her and took care of her. These days, Nancy is attending school again and will probably receive a scholarship from the Mexican government. She wants to be a hair stylist, she says. "She’s doing fine, but she became a lot more quiet", her mother María de la Luz says outside, away from her daughter. "She sleeps well, and is able to concentrate. She was lucky to be unconscious when it happened."
After the attack, Nancy moved with her mother and her twelve year old sister to Zaragoza, a suburb of Juárez. The two-room cottage she lives in now, measures fifteen square meters (135 square feet). It was a gift from the government, to compensate for what happened, although her mother still had to pay two thousand dollars for it, the equivalent of a year’s wage. The cabin they left behind a couple of months ago is still there. It is on the edge of the desert, built on a former municipal dump. Because of the remoteness, Nancy, on that almost fatal day in March, was the last person to stay behind in the bus.
When the driver found out that Nancy was still alive, he panicked. He fled south, taking his wife, who knew nothing, but had a hunch of what was going on. It wasn’t long before he beat her up in a drunken mood. She could not take it anymore, went to the police and turned her husband in. He confessed quickly but said that Nancy provoked the assault herself. Furthermore, he claimed to have been paid $1200 for it, by no one less than Abdel Latif Sharif, the Egyptian prime suspect who already served his thirty year sentence. And he was not the only one, he told the police, there were four other men, three of them bus drivers, who had done the same. The foursome confessed as well, and the Mexican authorities considered it the end of a dragging affair. According to the District Attorney, almost all the murders have been solved now, although no more arrests have been made.

PATRICIA CABRERA, FORMER JOURNALIST of the local newspaper El Diario and co-author of a recently published book about the killings, is not convinced. "Sharif is not a saint, but I can’t believe he plotted those murders from his jail cell", she says. "Besides, the investigation is a fraud. The suspects have been tortured to confess." She has got pictures to prove it, showing the bruises and wounds of the drivers after being questioned by the police. "I sent them to all the local media", she says. "Nobody published them, not even my own newspaper. The pictures didn’t match their quality standards, they said. It was the same old song: time and again people say it was the girls’ own fault, that they shouldn’t have come to a bar dressed in sexy clothes. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of them were abducted at six, seven in the morning, on their way to work. The real problem goes beyond the murders. Women are being systematically abused in this town, and nobody seems to care. According to the law, the victims should be protected. But the first journalist to get an interview with Nancy not only published her name and her picture, but her address and phone number as well. Imagine what kind of stigma that adds up to. On the streets and at school, people recognize her, nudging their neighbours, whispering she’s a prostitute."
The municipality is not a great help either, Cabrera says. "Even now, each Monday a group of mothers gathers at the police station to find out about the investigation. And each time they hear the problem has been solved. But they still don’t know who killed their daughters." According to city hall, the local government can only try to prevent crimes. The actual solving should be left to higher authorities. Cabrera: "Last year, the mayor organized an educational campaign, giving advice on how to vomit on command. He said that in case a girl should get assaulted, it’s best to throw up, because rapers don’t like that. Or to start laughing like a madman, so they will think she’s crazy. Either way, he assured, the raper will leave."
Cabrera also doesn’t have a clue who is behind the murders. "But it has to be someone with a lot of money and a lot of power. He has to have a 4 by 4 to drive into the desert, should be persuasive enough to convince the girl to go with him and has to have contacts within the police force, to bribe when necessary. I think there was probably one lunatic followed by a lot of copy-cats. The killings got a lot of publicity, but for years not a single breakthrough was reported. That’s not setting a very good example. Husbands, boyfriends, even relatives might have concluded that murdering women went unpunished in this town."
For more than half a year now no female corpses have been found in the desert surrounding Juárez. Slowly, it seems, the murders sink into oblivion. But the problem is far from over, Cabrera thinks. "Still, girls are being missed. Only now it’s much easier for the police to say they probably ran off with a man, or illegaly crossed the American border. Each day, there are so many people coming here, it’s hard to keep track of who comes and who leaves."
The heart of the matter is political, she suspects. "The maquiladoras have been around for thirty five years, but the killings only started in 1993, a year after the office of governor went to a member of the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN, Mexico’s main opposition party, editorial). However, since the end of last year there is a new governor in this state. He is a member of the Partico Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, Mexico’s ruling party, ed.) And behold: all of a sudden the killings stopped. As it happens, there are presidential elections next year. What better opportunity for the PRI to say what mess it was when the opposition ruled Juárez. And to point out how smooth things are going right now. The obvious conclusion: vote for our candidate."

CONSPIRACY THEORY OR NOT, things seem to have quieted down in Juárez, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Guillermina as well. "It doesn’t have to mean there are no girls being killed anymore", she says. "Maybe the murderers have become more careful, who knows." In a city where drug dealers and police informers are being dumped in mass graves, there is no reason to believe the same thing can’t happen to abducted women too. For all it matters, Guillermina will continue to paint the phone poles of Juárez, until all of them are turned pink. "I want to educate the women, as well as the men", she says. "The women to make them aware they’re not only at risk walking in the desert all alone, but also when going out, even for groceries. And the men, so they will understand that not every girl in a short skirt automatically wants to sleep with them. There’s nothing wrong with being macho, but there are limits."