A European Showdown Regarding Mexican Femicide
Article in: Frontera NorteSur, August 13, 2007
An alliance of Spanish, Polish and German legislators is watering down a resolution in the European Parliament that proposes tougher actions against femicides in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and Central America. Moving behind the scenes, the lawmakers have introduced more than 100 killing amendments to the strongly worded document.
Sponsored by Green/European Free Alliance Deputy Raul Romeva Rueda, the original resolution would create a femicide coordinator; elevate women's murders to a priority status between governments; monitor the treatment of women employees of transnational companies in Latin America; require an annual report to the gender commission of the European Parliament; and carry out a review of femicide cases prior to the 2008 Euro-Latin American summit scheduled for Lima, Peru.
"This has more weight than any other international recommendation," said Humberto Guerrero of the Mexico City-based Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights, a non-governmental organization that has been active in raising the profile of the women’s murders on the world stage.
In addition to the credibility of international treaties, the growing commercial relationships between Mexico and the European Union (EU) are at stake in the femicide resolution debate. Unlike the North American Free Trade Agreement, the 1997 EU-Mexico Agreement contains democracy and human rights provisions. Conceivably, Mexico could lose out on new European investments and trade if the women's murders and other human rights violations remain unpunished.
According to the Mexican Senate, economic transactions between Mexico and the EU jumped 103 percent from 1999 to 2005, reaching at least $37 billion. In the six-year period studied, Mexican exports to the EU soared by 123 percent. Currently, about 25 percent of foreign investment monies in Mexico come from Europe.
While Romeva's resolution awaits action, new economic initiatives like the Latin American Institute of Biotechnology planned for the state of Nuevo Leon are in the works between Mexico and the EU. The project also involves the Nuevo Leon state government, the privately owned Technological University of Monterrey, the Monsanto Company, and other organizations.
The Murder of a Dutch Woman
Although some EU legislators have condemned all the femicides, the 1998 killing of Dutch citizen Hester van Nierop, in Ciudad Juarez, helped place the issue on the inter-continental political agenda. The 28-year-old victim was found semi-nude, strangled and stuffed underneath a bed in a seedy downtown Ciudad Juarez hotel. Van Nierop was traveling alone to the United States after a long vacation with her family in Mexico when she was slain.
A squad of state police officers from the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General (PGJE), headed by Antonio Navarrete, was assigned to investigate van Nierop's murder. Navarrete was earlier involved in the controversial arrest of the late Egyptian national Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, who was accused of multiple women's murders but widely regarded as the first scapegoat in a long line of slayings.
Navarrete and other agents involved in the van Nierop case were among officers named for possible crimes of negligence and omission in a 2004 report by former federal Special Prosecutor Maria Lopez Urbina. Several possible suspects in the van Nierop slaying emerged, including an escaped serial killer, Pedro Padilla Flores, but no arrests were ever made.
While on a trip to Ciudad Juarez and El Paso in 2004, van Nierop's outraged parents discovered that the investigation of their daughter's murder was paralyzed. Meeting in late 2005, European non-governmental organizations vowed to escalate their campaign against the Ciudad Juarez femicides by pressuring the transnational Philips Company, which operated maquiladora plants in Ciudad Juarez where several victims had once worked, and by lobbying for the triggering of the democratic and human rights clause of the EU-Mexico Agreement. In this context, Romeva's resolution set off alarm bells in Mexico.
Meet Mexico's New Crisis Manager
Last April, Romeva traveled to Mexico City for meetings with Special Prosecutor for Women's Homicides Alicia Perez Duarte, Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez and other officials. According to Romeva, Mexican officials expressed concern that his resolution "would damage the image of Mexico."
The day before Romeva's trip, the Mexican Senate gave approval to the Calderon administration's appointment of Sandra Fuentes-Berain as Mexico's new ambassador to the European Union. In her new position, Fuentes-Berain would be the chief troubleshooter in charge of smoothing over thorny matters like the femicide resolution.
A 57-year-old native of Mexico City, Fuentes-Berain began her career with the Ministry of Foreign Relations (SRE) as a young woman in 1971, the same year government-supported paramilitaries mowed down students in Mexico City in the infamous Jueves de Corpus massacre.
Fuentes-Berain has served as Mexican ambassador in several countries, including a stint in Holland during the Hester van Nierop controversy. The career diplomat is credited with negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada, and with greasing the wheels of Mexico's entry into the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation pact. Ratifying the seasoned dealmaker as EU ambassador, the Mexican Senate noted Fuentes-Berain’s talent at encouraging "strategic alliances between foreign and Mexican companies, especially in the automotive, energy, banking and agro-industrial sectors."
Holding an honorary doctorate from Harvard University, Fuentes-Berain has generally enjoyed a non-controversial record of service. An exception came during the 2000 presidential election when she was criticized for allegedly using her government position to promote the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Francisco Labastida, whose campaign later came under fire for receiving millions of dollars in public money from the Pemex state oil company.
Fire and Brimstone in the European Parliament
On June 25, European legislators gathered for a lively debate of Romeva's femicide resolution. Ambassador Fuentes-Berain and Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez were on hand for the session. Chihuahua's top cop assured the lawmakers that the administration of Governor Jose Reyes Baeza was making steady progress in chipping away at impunity.
According to Gonzalez's data, of 413 female homicide cases opened from January 21, 1993 to May 18, 2007, fully 264 were in some process of resolution; eight of the cases were determined to have been suicides. According to the PGJE's statistics, only 139 cases were still under investigation.
Spanish parliamentarian Ignacio Salafranca of the conservative Popular European Party was among the deputies who spoke out against Romeva's resolution. In 2006, Deputy Salafranca headed a controversial EU observer delegation that gave a quick stamp of approval to the Mexican presidential election even as doubts about the official results mushroomed amid accusations of fraud, widespread irregularities and massive street protests. Mexican SRE official Lorena Larios, who collaborated with Salafranca while she was assigned to the European Parliament, coordinated Deputy Romeva's April 2007 official meetings in Mexico.
In the debate, Salafranca emphasized that violence against women was a "planetary" and "universal" phenomenon, and that it was unfair to single out Mexico. Turning to Romeva, he said, "Before you set out to save the world you should first look at your own house." Salafranca compared the Ciudad Juarez femicides to gender violence in Spain, where "150,000 complaints of physical mistreatment of women" were registered this year alone. Declaring that the European Parliament is not a tribunal to judge others, Salafranca urged a spirit of cooperation with Mexico.
Left Deputy Eva-Britt Svenson responded: "The fact that this is a world problem doesn't mean that one is not going to investigate in a certain region or country. We are not a tribunal, of course, but our responsibility is to investigate what goes on (in Mexico), a country with which we have signed a democratic clause, but it doesn't seem to be enough in this case."
Introduced by Salafranca, German socialist Deputy Erika Mann, Polish Deputy Ana Zaborska and other deputies, amendments to Romeva's resolution propose nixing a femicide coordinator; foregoing any monitoring of transnational companies; eschewing the reform of Mexico's legal system; and not requiring a review of the van Nierop murder and other femicides before the 2008 Peruvian summit. Another amendment praises Mexico's federal government for its "efforts realized in terms of (achieving) nondiscrimination between men and women."
The amendments, which can be voted up or down, are expected to be considered by the European Parliament's gender commission next month; the femicide resolution will likely be heard by the political institution's plenary in October. Mexican human rights activist Humberto Guerrero is dismayed by the latest developments. "One cannot be very optimistic,” he said.
Despite the existence of the democratic clause in the EU-Mexico accord, some critics have long accused the EU of practicing a double standard when it comes to human rights. In a 2005 article, Tobias Pflueger, a deputy for the United Left/Norwegian Greens, criticized the president of the European Parliament's Mexico delegation, Erika Mann, for allegedly being more interested in free trade than in human rights.
While Mexican human rights violations languished in impunity,Pflueger contended that the EU was abandoning principled action for economic gain. The EU was most interested in pressuring Mexico to open up 14 additional investment opportunities in the electricity, education, water and other sectors, Pflueger charged.
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Sources: Cimacnoticias.com, August 3, 2007. Article by Lourdes Godinez Leal. Proceso/Apro, December 25, 2005 and August 2, 2007. Articles by Marco Appel and Tobias Pflueger. La Jornada, November 25, 2006. Article by Claudia Herrera Beltran. Senado.gob.mx. Conocimientoenlinea.com. Bones in the Desert, Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez. Editoral Anagrama, 2002. Harvest of Women, Diana Washington Valdez. Oceana, 2005.
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Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
——————————
(Reprinted with authorization from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source. FNS can be found at http://frontera.nmsu.edu/)
Translation FNS
An alliance of Spanish, Polish and German legislators is watering down a resolution in the European Parliament that proposes tougher actions against femicides in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and Central America. Moving behind the scenes, the lawmakers have introduced more than 100 killing amendments to the strongly worded document.
Sponsored by Green/European Free Alliance Deputy Raul Romeva Rueda, the original resolution would create a femicide coordinator; elevate women's murders to a priority status between governments; monitor the treatment of women employees of transnational companies in Latin America; require an annual report to the gender commission of the European Parliament; and carry out a review of femicide cases prior to the 2008 Euro-Latin American summit scheduled for Lima, Peru.
"This has more weight than any other international recommendation," said Humberto Guerrero of the Mexico City-based Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights, a non-governmental organization that has been active in raising the profile of the women’s murders on the world stage.
In addition to the credibility of international treaties, the growing commercial relationships between Mexico and the European Union (EU) are at stake in the femicide resolution debate. Unlike the North American Free Trade Agreement, the 1997 EU-Mexico Agreement contains democracy and human rights provisions. Conceivably, Mexico could lose out on new European investments and trade if the women's murders and other human rights violations remain unpunished.
According to the Mexican Senate, economic transactions between Mexico and the EU jumped 103 percent from 1999 to 2005, reaching at least $37 billion. In the six-year period studied, Mexican exports to the EU soared by 123 percent. Currently, about 25 percent of foreign investment monies in Mexico come from Europe.
While Romeva's resolution awaits action, new economic initiatives like the Latin American Institute of Biotechnology planned for the state of Nuevo Leon are in the works between Mexico and the EU. The project also involves the Nuevo Leon state government, the privately owned Technological University of Monterrey, the Monsanto Company, and other organizations.
The Murder of a Dutch Woman
Although some EU legislators have condemned all the femicides, the 1998 killing of Dutch citizen Hester van Nierop, in Ciudad Juarez, helped place the issue on the inter-continental political agenda. The 28-year-old victim was found semi-nude, strangled and stuffed underneath a bed in a seedy downtown Ciudad Juarez hotel. Van Nierop was traveling alone to the United States after a long vacation with her family in Mexico when she was slain.
A squad of state police officers from the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General (PGJE), headed by Antonio Navarrete, was assigned to investigate van Nierop's murder. Navarrete was earlier involved in the controversial arrest of the late Egyptian national Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, who was accused of multiple women's murders but widely regarded as the first scapegoat in a long line of slayings.
Navarrete and other agents involved in the van Nierop case were among officers named for possible crimes of negligence and omission in a 2004 report by former federal Special Prosecutor Maria Lopez Urbina. Several possible suspects in the van Nierop slaying emerged, including an escaped serial killer, Pedro Padilla Flores, but no arrests were ever made.
While on a trip to Ciudad Juarez and El Paso in 2004, van Nierop's outraged parents discovered that the investigation of their daughter's murder was paralyzed. Meeting in late 2005, European non-governmental organizations vowed to escalate their campaign against the Ciudad Juarez femicides by pressuring the transnational Philips Company, which operated maquiladora plants in Ciudad Juarez where several victims had once worked, and by lobbying for the triggering of the democratic and human rights clause of the EU-Mexico Agreement. In this context, Romeva's resolution set off alarm bells in Mexico.
Meet Mexico's New Crisis Manager
Last April, Romeva traveled to Mexico City for meetings with Special Prosecutor for Women's Homicides Alicia Perez Duarte, Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez and other officials. According to Romeva, Mexican officials expressed concern that his resolution "would damage the image of Mexico."
The day before Romeva's trip, the Mexican Senate gave approval to the Calderon administration's appointment of Sandra Fuentes-Berain as Mexico's new ambassador to the European Union. In her new position, Fuentes-Berain would be the chief troubleshooter in charge of smoothing over thorny matters like the femicide resolution.
A 57-year-old native of Mexico City, Fuentes-Berain began her career with the Ministry of Foreign Relations (SRE) as a young woman in 1971, the same year government-supported paramilitaries mowed down students in Mexico City in the infamous Jueves de Corpus massacre.
Fuentes-Berain has served as Mexican ambassador in several countries, including a stint in Holland during the Hester van Nierop controversy. The career diplomat is credited with negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada, and with greasing the wheels of Mexico's entry into the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation pact. Ratifying the seasoned dealmaker as EU ambassador, the Mexican Senate noted Fuentes-Berain’s talent at encouraging "strategic alliances between foreign and Mexican companies, especially in the automotive, energy, banking and agro-industrial sectors."
Holding an honorary doctorate from Harvard University, Fuentes-Berain has generally enjoyed a non-controversial record of service. An exception came during the 2000 presidential election when she was criticized for allegedly using her government position to promote the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Francisco Labastida, whose campaign later came under fire for receiving millions of dollars in public money from the Pemex state oil company.
Fire and Brimstone in the European Parliament
On June 25, European legislators gathered for a lively debate of Romeva's femicide resolution. Ambassador Fuentes-Berain and Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez were on hand for the session. Chihuahua's top cop assured the lawmakers that the administration of Governor Jose Reyes Baeza was making steady progress in chipping away at impunity.
According to Gonzalez's data, of 413 female homicide cases opened from January 21, 1993 to May 18, 2007, fully 264 were in some process of resolution; eight of the cases were determined to have been suicides. According to the PGJE's statistics, only 139 cases were still under investigation.
Spanish parliamentarian Ignacio Salafranca of the conservative Popular European Party was among the deputies who spoke out against Romeva's resolution. In 2006, Deputy Salafranca headed a controversial EU observer delegation that gave a quick stamp of approval to the Mexican presidential election even as doubts about the official results mushroomed amid accusations of fraud, widespread irregularities and massive street protests. Mexican SRE official Lorena Larios, who collaborated with Salafranca while she was assigned to the European Parliament, coordinated Deputy Romeva's April 2007 official meetings in Mexico.
In the debate, Salafranca emphasized that violence against women was a "planetary" and "universal" phenomenon, and that it was unfair to single out Mexico. Turning to Romeva, he said, "Before you set out to save the world you should first look at your own house." Salafranca compared the Ciudad Juarez femicides to gender violence in Spain, where "150,000 complaints of physical mistreatment of women" were registered this year alone. Declaring that the European Parliament is not a tribunal to judge others, Salafranca urged a spirit of cooperation with Mexico.
Left Deputy Eva-Britt Svenson responded: "The fact that this is a world problem doesn't mean that one is not going to investigate in a certain region or country. We are not a tribunal, of course, but our responsibility is to investigate what goes on (in Mexico), a country with which we have signed a democratic clause, but it doesn't seem to be enough in this case."
Introduced by Salafranca, German socialist Deputy Erika Mann, Polish Deputy Ana Zaborska and other deputies, amendments to Romeva's resolution propose nixing a femicide coordinator; foregoing any monitoring of transnational companies; eschewing the reform of Mexico's legal system; and not requiring a review of the van Nierop murder and other femicides before the 2008 Peruvian summit. Another amendment praises Mexico's federal government for its "efforts realized in terms of (achieving) nondiscrimination between men and women."
The amendments, which can be voted up or down, are expected to be considered by the European Parliament's gender commission next month; the femicide resolution will likely be heard by the political institution's plenary in October. Mexican human rights activist Humberto Guerrero is dismayed by the latest developments. "One cannot be very optimistic,” he said.
Despite the existence of the democratic clause in the EU-Mexico accord, some critics have long accused the EU of practicing a double standard when it comes to human rights. In a 2005 article, Tobias Pflueger, a deputy for the United Left/Norwegian Greens, criticized the president of the European Parliament's Mexico delegation, Erika Mann, for allegedly being more interested in free trade than in human rights.
While Mexican human rights violations languished in impunity,Pflueger contended that the EU was abandoning principled action for economic gain. The EU was most interested in pressuring Mexico to open up 14 additional investment opportunities in the electricity, education, water and other sectors, Pflueger charged.
——————————
Sources: Cimacnoticias.com, August 3, 2007. Article by Lourdes Godinez Leal. Proceso/Apro, December 25, 2005 and August 2, 2007. Articles by Marco Appel and Tobias Pflueger. La Jornada, November 25, 2006. Article by Claudia Herrera Beltran. Senado.gob.mx. Conocimientoenlinea.com. Bones in the Desert, Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez. Editoral Anagrama, 2002. Harvest of Women, Diana Washington Valdez. Oceana, 2005.
——————————
Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
——————————
(Reprinted with authorization from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source. FNS can be found at http://frontera.nmsu.edu/)
Translation FNS
Tobias Pflüger - 2007/08/28 09:30
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