Thread: Slain Mexican activist's kin found dead

Slain Mexican activist's kin found dead
Sister, brother and sister-in-law had been abducted near Guadalupe
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Feb. 26, 2011, 12:28AM


MEXICO CITY — Mexican soldiers recovered the bodies early Friday of three close relatives of a prominent human rights activist who herself was assassinated last year in a small town near Ciudad Juarez on the West Texas border.

The sister, brother and sister-in-law of activist Josefina Reyes Salazar had been abducted Feb. 7 by at least six armed men as they traveled a road near their home in Guadalupe, on the Rio Grande 35 miles down river from El Paso.

Their bodies were dumped on a busy highway near the town sometime before dawn, prosecutor Jorge Gonzalez said in a news conference.

Buried, then dug up
Malena and Elias Reyes and Elias' wife, Luisa Ornelas, had been shot some days ago, Gonzalez said. They appear to have been buried, then dug up and placed on the highway for authorities to find. Placards left with the bodies accused the three of being "hawks," or spotters, for criminal gangs.

"The investigation will go where it has to go," Gonzalez vowed. "This is a priority investigation."

The three are the latest of some dozen rights activists or their relatives murdered in Juarez and the state of Chihuahua in the past three years. They include six members of the Reyes Salazar family killed in the past two years.

"This crime cannot remain in the sea of impunity that is drowning this city," Gustavo de la Rosa, Chihuahua state's human rights investigator in Ciudad Juarez, said in the news conference. "It's an unquestionable aggression against human rights defenders."

Josefina Reyes, 54, had blamed Mexican soldiers for the abduction and murder of her son, Julio Cesar, in 2009. She staged protests in front of the federal attorney general's office in Juarez to demand her son's death be investigated and founded a human rights group in the towns down river from the city.

Gangsters or officials?
Reyes was shot to death in early January last year. Her brother Ruben, a baker in Guadalupe, was killed last August.

Arsonists burned two of the Reyes Salazar family's homes in Guadalupe on Feb. 15. The home of another activist who has joined them in their protests was burned in Juarez last week.

"I don't know if it was the gangsters or officials who want to frighten us," Marisela Reyes, one of Josefina's sisters, told a TV interviewer after the houses were burned.

Gangland violence has killed nearly 8,000 people in Ciudad Juarez and nearby communities in the past three years. Guadalupe and other towns in the so-called Valley of Juarez have been among the most violent.

A gunman assassinated Marisela Escobedo, 52, in mid-December as she protested in front of the governor's palace in Chihuahua City, the state capital, to demand the arrest of her daughter's killer. A few days later assailants, burned down the Juarez business Escobedo owned with her common-law husband and killed his brother. Her brother, a son and 3-year-old granddaughter fled to El Paso and are seeking U.S. political asylum.

"There is no interest in investigating any of this," said Alma Gomez, a rights activist based in Chihuahua City. "We are all completely unprotected."

dudley.althaus@chron.com


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/7446917.html

"There is no interest in investigating any of this," said Alma Gomez, a rights activist based in Chihuahua City. "We are all completely unprotected."

When you think as you do, you give them more power. There is always a way to eliminate a problem, you just have to figure out how to pursue ending the situation.