protect and serve

March 2004.

So who is killing the poor young women and girls of Juarez? And why, after more than ten years, do the killings continue? Some of the murders are believed to be the work of serial killers or drug gangs, linked to the powerful Juarez drug cartel. Others link the murders to an organ-trafficking network. Still others say that the perpetrators come from among some 700 sex offenders who live in El Paso and often visit Juarez. Another theory is that a number of the mutilated bodies found in the desert bear the signs of snuff films, the type of violent porn films in which someone is really killed at the end. The inability of the local authorities to stop the murders has convinced many of possible police complicity in the crimes.

Now they don't find the bodies. Years ago they did.

This is how they ensure that "no credible evidence" ever exists to prove those crazy organ trafficking and snuff film urban legend myths: the people disappear.

January 12, 2010: JUAREZ, MEXICO – There is nothing unusual on the outside of the one-storey building in central Juarez that operates as a rehabilitation centre. But the inside is a literal hell.

A confidential source told US and Mexican authorities that he saw women's bodies lying on the floor. He also was present when dead men were hauled inside the building by a group of hit-men.

The source said: "I asked one of the men in charge at the place about the women's bodies.

"I knew about women in Juarez disappearing. Everyone knew that about Juarez. This had to be one of the main ways in which they vanish.

"The bodies I saw were of young-looking women. They told me they were trying to break into the organ-trafficking business and that it was simply another way to make money.

"He said they wanted to sell organs from the men's bodies as well. He said all this very matter of factly.

"This was no rehab centre. They sold drugs in there, and people were in and out all the time. The centre actually had a government permit for the place. A man and his two sons kept the centre going."

This was no ordinary criminal enterprise. Two years later, the same activities continued without interruption. Despite the drug-violence that besieged the border city, nothing slowed the kidnappings and murders associated with the centre.

At times, men wearing police uniforms brought weapons inside the building, only to return later for them. Bodies came and went. The world on the outside, on the other side of the door, was oblivious to what went on inside this den of horrors.

The source asked whether the police helped with the business. The only response he got was that they were part of nuestra gente (our people).

He was told not to worry because if anyone were to be arrested, the authorities would have to start with some top officials of the Mexican government.

"I wondered after seeing so much whether I would ever leave that place alive," the source said. "To survive, I pretended to go along with things. I never voiced disapproval."

Between 1993 and 2009, more than 600 girls and women were murdered in Juarez, Mexico. But the actual number of women who died in this way is higher because the authorities have concealed some of the deaths from past years.

Hundreds more are missing and their fate is unknown. Activists suspect human-trafficking gangs lured or abducted many of the missing women.

Over the past decade, the US State Department and human rights organisations around the world have highlighted human-trafficking and child-sex tourism in Mexico.

According to a US State Department report released in 2009, child-sex tourism continues to grow in Mexican northern border cities such as Tijuana and Juarez.

Cancun and Acapulco are also popular child sex-tourism destination. The report said: "Foreign child-sex tourists arrive most often from the United States, Canada and western Europe."

Each year, as many as 20,000 children are sexually exploited in these urban centres. "Mexican men, women and children (also) are trafficked into the United States for forced labour, particularly in agriculture and industrial sweatshops," the report said.

The US government said corruption and lax enforcement were to blame for few human-trafficking prosecutions in Mexico.

Jacinto Segura, a spokesman for the Juarez city police, said: "We're aware of the report, but our function as city police is prevention.

"If police become aware of a situation of this nature, then they will step in to prevent it. State and federal authorities can investigate any complaints brought to their attention."

Mexican authorities however failed to act on a well-documented warning in 2001 describing such abuses.

The United Nations' Unicef and Mexico's National System for Integral Family Development (DIF) released a 135-page report that year alleging the sexual exploitation of children was rampant on the country's northern and southern borders.

The report identified specific places in Juarez where clandestine meetings for adults seeking children were arranged.

The report, titled Boy and Girl Victims of Sexual Exploitation in Mexico, stemmed from a 10-month investigation that focused primarily on Juarez, Tijuana, Guadalajara, Acapulco, Cancun and Tapachula, Chiapas.

The organisations behind the report recommended a bi-national task force to address the problem.
A former law enforcement officer in the state of Chihuahua, who asked that his name not be used, alleged that police at all levels protect human-trafficking networks.

Because of his contacts, he managed to rescue one teenage girl who was transported from Juarez to Mexico City for prostitution, and saved another girl who was raped by police before she was taken out of the city.
Raul Gonzalez, a former informant for US investigators, said he was aware that human-trafficking worked in concert with drug-trafficking during the 1980s.

He said: "Small airplanes carrying drugs and children landed on clandestine air strips in the Valle de Juarez, (a community east of the Juarez city limits).

"We were told back then that the children were sold to people in the United States."

A member of a well-known advocacy organisation in Mexico, who asked not to be identified, said human-trafficking is a fact of life in Juarez and other Mexican cities.

"A mother we interviewed for one of our cases said a US politician was present at one of the sex parties where underage girls were sexually exploited.

"I have to leave some of the details out because this kind of information can get you killed.

"Besides, we know the authorities are not going to do anything, especially when important people are implicated," the advocate said.

Mexican journalists and non-governmental organisations who have exposed child prostitution and trafficking rings reported threats against them.

The Rand Corporation issued a report in 2009, Security in Mexico: Implications for US Policy Options, that described what others often say about the extent of mafias operating in Mexico.

"Organised crime has infiltrated all levels of Mexico's government and police forces, and is involved in many illegal activities that are on the rise, including drug trafficking, human trafficking and arms trafficking."

Rand presents in clear detail the challenge for policymakers in Mexico.

Sources: The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women (2nd Edition, 2010/Peace at the Border) and the El Paso Times newspaper.

And who does one turn to for help?

Does one go to the AMERICAN GOVERNMENT?
Perhaps one's CONGRESSPERSON?
The US STATE DEPARTMENT?
The DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY?
Or the FBI...?


It's about as effective as going to the CIA to complain about Jundullah. They'll take copious notes and fuck you over twice as efficiently next time.