Violence Threatens Border Elections

More violence over the weekend.

Josefina Reyes' assassination is not forgotten or overlooked by activists in Mexico who are tired of the endless cycle of death and violence.

(CIUDAD, Juarez) - Upcoming state and local elections could become another casualty of the violence ravaging a rural region just south of Ciudad Juarez.

Less than three months before voters go to the polls to elect a new governor and other officials, no one has registered for the mayoral candidacies of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in the municipalities of Praxedis G. Guerrero and Guadalupe Distrito Bravos.

The center-left PRD party is experiencing similar problems in finding willing candidates, said Victor Quintana, a PRD state legislator from Chihuahua City.

The late Josefina Reyes

In January, assassins went after human rights activist Josefina Reyes, a former PRD elected official from the Juarez Valley. Last year, a city council representative for the PAN was shot to death in Praxedis, while a PRI city council member was murdered in Guadalupe.

Since the beginning of the year, violence in the Juarez Valley between competing criminal groups has left scores of people dead, at least another dozen people kidnapped and between 12-15 buildings burned. Thousands have reportedly fled to Texas across the border or to neighboring Ciudad Juarez and other places in Mexico. Prior to the escalation of violence two years ago, about 20,000 people inhabited the Juarez Valley.

According to calculations by New Mexico State University researcher Molly Molloy, the Juarez Valley currently has an astounding annual murder rate of 1600 victims per 100,000 inhabitants. In an Easter letter to President Felipe Calderon and other high Mexican officials, the Ciudad Juarez-based Worker Research and Solidarity Center (CISO) demanded security for the Juarez Valley.

“Many times, massacres have happened in the valley when we have seen the murderers carry out their threats against a defenseless population,” wrote CISO. “As part of the security operations, (government forces) have confiscated pistols and rifles from the rural populations, leaving the inhabitants defenseless against the hired gunmen.”

In response to widespread complaints, Enrique Torres Valadez, spokesman for the joint federal-state security operation in the Ciudad Juarez area, assured a Mexican reporter that federal police were busy patrolling the Juarez Valley. Residents of another disputed areas, the neighborhood of Granjas de Lomas de Poleo on the northwest edge of Ciudad Juarez, have long complained of being the target of violent tactics similar to the ones currently employed in the Juarez Valley, with little or no response from the authorities.

Posting on El Diario de Juarez’s website, a writer speculated that the objective of the scorched earth campaign in the Juarez Valley could be to clear out all the old residents and replace them with new ones. Meanwhile, the remaining residents of the Juarez Valley’s small towns spent Easter weekend on edge after messages were posted in public and transmitted on the Internet that warned inhabitants to leave by 4 April or face dire consequences.

Parroquia de Nuestra Señora del Sagrado Corazón The 'Parish of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart' Church

As of Monday, 5 April, no massive attack had been reported.

On the evening of Good Friday, however, armed men set fire to the Catholic church in El Porvenir. The blaze was extinguished by the quick response of locals who answered a call for help from the church’s priest.

A parish helper going by the name of “Manuel,” said soldiers took three hours to arrive at the scene of the arson attack, even though the army maintains a camp only four blocks from the church.

In other separate attacks in the valley over the weekend, one man was wounded and two slain. The murder victims, 20-year old Pascual Eduardo Carmona Gardea, and 20-year old Jose Gilberto Mejia Salinas, were gunned down 3 April in the cemetery of El Sauzal while at the burial for another recent victim of the violence.

A prevailing climate of violence and terror makes political participation in the Juarez Valley very problematic, to say the least.

PRD lawmaker Quintana demanded that authorities step up their vigilance of the zone. Susana Muriel, a state legislator for the PANAL party, conceded that trouble in hot spots like the Juarez Valley threatened to blemish July's elections, but insisted the political exercise would go forward.

The Chihuahua State Electoral Institute plans a special campaign this week to train election workers for valley towns closest to Ciudad Juarez. However, a spokesman for the state agency said this week’s training will not cover the violence-torn municipalities of Praxedis and Guadalupe.

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Special thanks to Frontera NorteSur and El Diario de Juarez