Mexican families carry out their own investigations to find the disappeared

Since her teenage daughter went missing eight years ago, Silvia Ortiz has known that any progress in the case depends on her alone. "I still don't know if Fanny is alive or not. Maybe she is in a mass grave and I will never find her, but I have to keep looking," Ortiz says. "If I don't, who will?"

This was true even in the hours immediately after Fanny's disappearance on her way home from a basketball match in the city of Torreón in northern Mexico. With the police dragging their feet, the family brought in sniffer dogs that followed the 16-year-old's trail until it stopped abruptly at a roadside. Then they found clues linking the abduction to criminals associated with the Zetas drug cartel. When the authorities still did nothing, they discovered that the official heading the investigation was the lover of one of their prime suspects.

In the following years, the pattern was repeated: Ortiz turned up fresh leads, only for the authorities to ignore them. Meanwhile, Mexico's drug war spiralled out of control: tens of thousands were killed – more than 100,000 by some counts – and many others simply vanished. There is no reliable data on the number of people forcibly disappeared during the drug violence, but a document from the Mexican attorney general's office leaked to the Washington Post lists 25,000 adults and children who have gone missing since the start of the Calderón offensive. The documents were reportedly leaked by bureaucrats frustrated with the outgoing government's failure to openly recognise the size of the problem.

For Ortiz, the trauma of her loss was revived in October, when the Zetas' leader, Heriberto Lazcano – known as "El Lazca" – was shot dead by the Mexican navy in an episode shrouded in confusion. Lazcano's body was apparently snatched from a funeral parlour a few hours after his death, but reports soon emerged that a photograph found among his belongings showed the capo sitting beside a young woman who resembled Fanny.

"Of course my heart jumped," Ortiz says. "I would be lying if I said that I didn't believe it was her at first, but my son kept saying: 'No way, forget it, it isn't her, look at the nose.'"

Even in that first flush of false hope there was terror. Whether it was or wasn't Fanny, being so publicly associated with Lazcano was dangerous. If Fanny had ended up in Lazcano's hands, she would now be especially vulnerable to the attentions of rival cartels.

Things only got worse when the Coahuila state attorney general told reporters a recently arrested Zetas commander nicknamed "the Squirrel" had confessed that he abducted Fanny and took her to Lazcano. "It is hard to explain the enormous pain that this generated for us," Ortiz says. "We didn't sleep at all. We jumped up at every tiny noise to see if they were coming for us."

Ortiz soon became convinced that the woman in the photograph was not Fanny. She says she tracked down the real subject of the picture, who told her the man by her side was not even Lazcano. Then she found out from federal officials that neither the story about the photograph being found in his clothes, nor the Squirrel's confession, were true. After a moment in the media spotlight, Ortiz fears Fanny will slip back into anonymity "like all the thousands of other disappeared people".

The attention given to Fanny's case in recent weeks was certainly unusual, but her family's investigative efforts and determination to keep up the pressure in the face of government inaction, incompetence or complicity is not.

Jorge Verástegui found links to local police behind the abduction of his brother and nephew in Coahuila after a religious meeting in 2009. This brought "friendly advice" from officials to tone things down for his own safety, which he ignored: "I don't know at what point I broke the fear barrier but the promise that I have made to myself and my family is much bigger."

Verástegui pins his hopes on collective action. He admits the relatives' group in Coahuila that he helped form, which has registered 258 forced disappearances since 2008, has not won significant improvements in investigations. But, he says, it has provided mutual support and chiselled away at the widely held assumption that those who go missing in drug war hotspots must have some link to organised crime. "We are cleaning the image of the disappeared," he says. "People are beginning to realise that this is something that could happen to anybody."

The dynamics of disappearances vary but Verástegui believes that in Coahuila they are associated with forced recruitment into the cartels, suggesting some of the missing could be packing drugs in safe houses or working as hitmen. "No other explanation fits the fact that ransoms are not demanded in most cases," he says. "It is also a hypothesis that gives us hope of finding them alive."

Fanny's mother will never let go of that hope until she has a fully identified body to bury. "All I want is to see my baby," she says. "All I want is to tell her I love her, and to tell her I want to heal her wounds."

Saturday 1 December 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/30/mexico-disappeared-drug-war-calderon

Missing people, reporting is a duty of all

In Italy, from now on, anyone who becomes aware of the disappearance of someone, can report it to the Police, that will immediately start the research.

A possibility, therefore, which will no longer be due just to the family of the missing person.

This is the main novelty of the law 203/2012, just come into force, which aims to simplify the procedures for the search of those who went away from home for no apparent reason and under circumstances such as to suggest that his/her own life or personal safety is at risk.

The text also provides for the early involvement, by the prefects, of the Special Commissioner for missing persons, so as soon as possible to take all steps within its competence, using the aid of local authorities, the National Body of firefighters and civil protection system, associations of social volunteering all other bodies, public and private, active in the territory.

Finally, the new law establishes the obligation for the person who has denounced the disappearance, to withdraw the report in case there are not anymore the reasons that led him or her to turn to the authorities.

Saturday 1 December 2012

http://www.west-info.eu/missing-people-reporting-is-a-duty-of-all/

Mexico: More than 25,000 people disappear in six years

Mexico's Attorney General has compiled a list showing that more than 25,000 adults and children have gone missing in Mexico in the past six years, according to unpublished government documents.

The data sets, submitted by state prosecutors and vetted by the federal government but never released to the public, chronicle the disappearance of tens of thousands of people in the chaos and violence that have enveloped Mexico during its fight against drug mafias and crime gangs.

Families have been left wondering whether their loved ones are alive or among the more than 100,000 victims of homicides recorded during the presidency of Felipe Calderon, who leaves office today. The names on the list – many more than in previous, non-government estimates – are recorded in columns, along with the dates they disappeared, their ages, the clothes they were wearing, their jobs and a few brief, often chilling, details:

"His wife went to buy medicine and disappeared," reads one typical entry. "The son was addicted to drugs." "Her daughter was forced into a car." "The father was arrested by men wearing uniforms and never seen again."

The documents were provided by bureaucrats frustrated by what they describe as a lack of official transparency and the failure of government agencies to investigate the cases.

The leaked list is not complete – or, probably, precise. Some of the missing may have returned to their homes, and some families may never have reported disappearances.

But the list offers a rare glimpse of the running tally the Mexican government has been keeping, and it confirms what human rights activists and families of the missing have been saying: that Mexico has seen an explosion in the number of such cases and that the government appears to be overwhelmed. "What does the government do? Nothing or almost nothing. Why? There is a paralysis," said Juan Lopez Villanueva of the group United Forces for Our Missing in Mexico. "The state has failed us."

According to the National Commission on Human Rights, more than 7,000 people killed in Mexico in the past six years lie unidentified in morgue freezers or common graves. The commission's numbers suggest the government count might be accurate.

From 2006 to mid-2011, the commission notes that more than 18,000 Mexicans were reported missing.

Mr Calderon's spokesman declined to offer a reason why the numbers have not been made public during his tenure, and the Attorney General's office did not respond to questions.

Critics say the outgoing government is burying the numbers because their publication would highlight Mexico's failure to investigate the cases, and undermine efforts by Mr Calderon to show his fight against organised crime is working.

"Releasing the data would add to the already deteriorating forecast about growing insecurity, and publishing such a very large number just reinforces the idea that the country is violent," said Edna Jaime Trevino, director of the think tank Mexico Evalua.

The task of tracking the missing now falls to the incoming President Enrique Pena Nieto's new government. There is no statute of limitations for missing-person cases, and Mexico has heard withering criticism from both the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations about its handling of them.

In December 2011, Mr Calderon pledged to create a national database including lists of the people who had disappeared and of unidentified bodies, and he promised it would be ready in early 2012.

Then in March, the Mexican Congress passed a law that required the government to establish Mr Calderon's database, which medical examiners, law enforcement officials and families could use to help track cases. Since then, politicians have failed to publish the regulations that would allow the law to be implemented.

State prosecutors agreed to provide data from their missing-person cases to the Attorney General, but their reports appear uneven. For example, prosecutors in the northern border states of Chihuahua and Coahuila report only a few hundred cases, even as the governors of those states have stated that there were many more.

It remains to be seen if this will change with incoming president Enrique Peña Nieto.

The list of more than 200 pledges from his new administration does not mention the victims of the violence, and he has given little indication of what steps he will take to improve their situation.

The list of necessities is a long one.

The majority of Mexico's states don't have the technology to do DNA testing and crime scenes are regularly tainted by untrained investigators.

Many relatives of those disappeared think twice before going to local police forces, often fearing local officials may be in the pay of those who murdered their loved ones.

Peña Nieto has talked of reforming and retraining police, just as his predecessor did. But rooting out corruption among badly paid and frequently uneducated local police has proved to be easier said than done.

Saturday 1 December 2012

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mexico-more-than-25000-people-disappear-in-six-years-8372482.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/11/20121130182316164681.html

Tijuana site may contain up to 100 dissolved bodies

Authorities searching a vacant property in eastern Tijuana may have found the remains of dozens of drug-war victims gone missing after they were dissolved in lye by a man known as El Pozolero — the stew maker.

“We believe that there could be more than 100 bodies dissolved there,” said Abel Galván Gallardo, head of Baja California’s organized-crime unit. “There is the total possibility of being able to tell families that their loved one is here.”

The search began Tuesday and is likely to last at least into next week, Galván said Thursday.

By Friday afternoon, federal investigators had discovered 80 human bones and 25 teeth, said Fernando Ocegueda, leader of the group United for the Disappeared of Baja California, which has been collaborating closely with authorities in the excavation effort. The organization represents family members of 280 people, many of whom disappeared at the height of drug violence in Baja California — from 2007 to 2010.

Human-rights activists believe scores of people have disappeared amid fighting among rival drug-trafficking groups and between law enforcement and organized crime. Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights has said more than 18,000 Mexicans were reported missing between 2006 and mid-2011. The Washington Post, citing unpublished government documents, reported Friday that the number is closer to 25,000.

In eastern Tijuana, investigators are combing through what Galván and Ocegueda described as “organic mass” found in a pit dug four feet underground. Their goal is to unearth as many bones and teeth as possible, then match the DNA from that evidence with DNA samples provided by victims’ family members.

Ocegueda said a second pit was discovered on the property Friday, but that investigators were still combing through the first one. He also said each pit is connected by a duct to a small room “where they would cook the bodies.” A spigot would be opened after the corpses were dissolved, allowing the remains to fall by gravity into the pit.

The bodies were likely dissolved by Santiago Meza López, nicknamed El Pozolero, who confessed to liquefying the corpses of about 300 organized-crime victims by the time Mexican troops captured him outside Ensenada in January 2009. Meza reported to Teodoro García Simental, a member of the Arellano Félix cartel who broke from that organization and formed an alliance with the Sinaloa cartel. Known for his brutality, García was arrested in February 2010.

Ocegueda said his group led investigators to the eastern Tijuana site in the struggling neighborhood of Maclovio Rojas, located off the free road to Tecate. He was able to locate it after being leaked a report of Meza’s confession, which said he had disposed of bodies in a cockfighting ranch.

“There’s something like 80 cockfighting ranches in that area,” Ocegueda said, and it took two years to pinpoint the correct spot.

The site is one of five where Meza said he had disposed the corpses of García’s victims, according to Ocequeda. United for the Disappeared of Baja California said it has looked at nearly three dozen sites in the past two years, including 13 that involved federal investigators.

Two of those sites yielded remains, Ocegueda said, but this week’s excavation seems the most promising to date. Remains at the previous loations were too decomposed to make any positive identifications, Ocegueda said.

“This shows that when you set a goal, you can reach it,” Ocegueda said. “We had to put a lot of pressure on the authorities.”

He plans to continue searching for the two other locations where Meza reportedly dissolved bodies. “For me, it is a great satisfaction having found this — and perhaps bring peace to some families,” said Ocegueda, whose own son has been missing since he was seized from the family’s residence in 2006.

Saturday 1 December 2012

http://www.nctimes.com/tijuana-site-may-contain-up-to-dissolved-bodies/article_ecc61401-ae99-545b-ae6c-d3f16e1c156a.html

Update: Pakistan recovers 12 bodies buried under landslides

At least 12 people have been killed, including eight Pakistani soldiers, and nine people are missing after being hit by landslides in the mountainous Kashmir region, officials said on Saturday.

A military rescue operation swung into action after heavy snows on Friday triggered two landslides at a remote outpost in the Kel area of Pakistan-administered Kashmir near the de facto border with India.

"Three bodies of soldiers were recovered yesterday. The dead bodies of five soldiers including a captain and four civilians have been recovered today (Saturday)," said a statement by the military.

Local administration officials said they were searching for more dead bodies as nine people from the rescue party were still missing.

"Eight soldiers and 10 civilians went to rescue the soldiers at the post, all of the rescuers were buried in the second landslide, so we are searching for the rest of the bodies," local administration official Raja Saqib Muneer told AFP.

Disputed Kashmir has caused two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947.

But with separatist violence having dropped sharply since a peace process began in 2004, the greatest dangers facing soldiers stationed at remote outposts are often landslides and extreme weather conditions.

In April, 140 Pakistani soldiers were buried when a huge wall of snow crashed into the remote Siachen Glacier base high in the mountains in Kashmir. They have all been declared dead, although some of the bodies remain buried.

That tragedy renewed debate about how much sense it made for a country where millions live below the poverty line to maintain outposts in Siachen, dubbed "the world's highest battleground", at immense cost when violence had decreased.

And in February, at least 16 Indian soldiers on duty in the mountains of Kashmir were killed when two avalanches swept through army camps.

In Friday's accident, a wall of mud and snow hit the outpost in the early hours, said Muneer, deputy commissioner of Neelam district, of which Kel is part.

The 18-strong team was quickly dispatched to search for the soldiers at the outpost, which is 130 kilometres (80 miles) from Pakistan-administered Kashmir's main town of Muzaffarabad, he said.

Separatist violence has fallen in Muslim-majority, heavily militarised Kashmir, but occasional gunfights still erupt between militants and security forces.

Saturday 1 December 2012

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i_wcaMiVzSMe2B3Rvc1fStJG-ERw?docId=CNG.0aa0fa5f64f9275cd7425e38b7275970.371

Update: At least 32 killed as plane hits houses in Congo

A cargo plane crashed into houses near Brazzaville Maya-Maya airport while attempting to land in a thunderstorm on Friday, killing at least 32 people, a Congolese Red Cross official said on Saturday.

"We have already pulled 32 bodies from the crash site, but there could be more victims," the official said, asking not to be named. The official said the dead included six crew members.

The Soviet-made Ilyushin-76 cargo plane, operated by local carrier Trans Air Congo was travelling from Pointe-Noire, the commercial capital of the Central African state. It crashed into more than a dozen houses near the airport.

Congo Republic, like its neighbour the Democratic Republic of Congo and many countries in the region, has one of the world's poorest aviation safety records due to poor maintenance and the use of old planes banned from other skies.

In March 2011, another Soviet-made Antonov cargo plane, operated by the same company, crashed into houses in Pointe-Noire while attempting to land, killing 23.

Saturday 1 December 2012

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/12/01/uk-congo-republic-crash-idUKBRE8B006520121201

31 bodies exhumed at Sibenik cemetery

Remains of 31 persons were exhumed at the city cemetery in Sibenik, Croatia, on Friday, and samples were taken for DNA analysis, the Serbian government's Commission on Missing Persons has said.

The exhumation, which was carried out by competent bodies of the Republic of Croatia, lasted for three days.

It was determined that 13 persons, who lost their lives in the same circumstances, were exhumed at the location earlier on individual requests of families.

The exhumation at the Sibenik cemetery is a continuation of the process of investigation of graves in north Dalmatia, where the victims of Croatian Operation Storm were buried.

The process was launched in 2001 at the city cemetery in Knin, where 301 bodies have been exhumed so far, and 250 identified and handed over to the families that have been searching for their beloved ones for years.

The exhumation was attended by President of Commission on Missing Persons Veljko Odalovic and Serbian Ambassador in Zagreb Stanimir Vukcevic.

Saturday 1 December 2012

http://www.tanjug.rs/news/67956/31-bodies-exhumed-at-sibenik-cemetery.htm?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Landslide kills three troops; 18 rescuers missing

A landslide killed three Pakistani soldiers in the high mountains of Kashmir on Friday and 18 people sent to rescue them were missing after being hit by a second landslip, officials said.

A military rescue operation swung into action after heavy snows triggered the accident at a remote outpost in the Kel area of Azad Kashmir near the Line of Control.

The bodies of the three soldiers had been recovered but rescuers were still searching for the eight soldiers and 10 civilians from the search party caught in the second landslide, local official Raja Saqib Majeed said.

“We hope that rescue workers will find some of them alive. Let’s hope for the best,” he said, but added that efforts were being hampered by continued bad weather.

In April, about 140 soldiers were buried when a huge wall of snow crashed into the Siachen Glacier base. They have all been declared dead, although some of the bodies remain buried.

In Friday’s accident, the first landslide hit in the early hours, said Mr Majeed, deputy commissioner of Neelam district, of which Kel is part.

The 18-strong team was quickly dispatched to search for them at the site, which is 130km from Muzaffarabad, he said. But he added that “another landslide hit this rescue party and they were buried under it”

Saturday 1 December 2012

http://dawn.com/2012/12/01/landslide-kills-three-troops-18-rescuers-missing/