Teacher Murders Tied to Organized Crime, Politics?

October 2, 2005

Chihuahua News

Teacher Murders Tied to Organized Crime, Politics?

It was a fateful autumn stroll. School teacher Sonia Madrid
Bojorquez and 19-year-old Maria Isabel Carrasco Vasquez
were walking along a street in the Chihuahua City
neighborhood of Nombre de Dios last Tuesday, when suddenly,
a group of men in a Grand Marquis automobile pulled up to
the two women. Shots rang out from the vehicle, striking
Madrid three times. The 39-year-old educator died on the
way to the hospital. Carrasco suffered a nervous attack but
was physically uninjured.

A local official with Mexico’s National Education Workers
Union (SNTE), Madrid was the latest in a string of
educators in Chihuahua state to fall victim to murder or
suspected foul play this year. Although no suspects have
been publicly named in the Madrid slaying, Chihuahua SNTE
leader Miguel Ramirez declared that organized crime was
sending violent messages to the union. Ramirez did not
elaborate. Union leaders called on law enforcement
authorities to capture Madrid’s murderers and clarify the
motive behind the killing.

The Madrid murder occurred within two days of planned
visits to Chihuahua state of two political rivals who are
involved in an all-out battle for control of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) : presidential
hopeful Roberto Madrazo and Elba Esther Gordillo. As the
largest teacher’s union in Latin America, the 1.5 million-
member SNTE is a vital part of the PRI’s mass base. The
longtime head of the SNTE, Gordillo recently resigned as
the PRI’s secretary general, threatening to split the party
apart on the eve of the 2006 presidential and congressional
elections.

Gordillo controls a potentially huge base of votes critical
to the PRI’s prospects in next year’s elections, especially
in a tight race between a Madrazo candidacy and front-
runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Party of the
Democratic Revolution. Close to President Vicente Fox and
his wife Martha Sahagun, Gordillo’s flirtations with the
National Action Party have inflamed her opponents within
the PRI. Gordillo also confronts long-running opposition
from the left within her union.

Gordillo’s planned visit to Chihuahua City was cancelled
after Madrid’s murder, but Madrazo’s campaign jaunt in
Chihuahua state went on as scheduled. One of two
candidates for the PRI’s presidential nomination, Madrazo
met in Ciudad Juarez with campaign supporters headed by
businessman Federico de la Vega. Madrazo’s stop in the
border city was marked by a demonstration by pro-Gordillo
protestors from the SNTE, who charged the former Tabasco
governor with being a “liar.”

In Ciudad Juarez last month, another teacher and SNTE
activist, Alma Delia Moreno Cadena, was abducted and
murdered along with her 21-year-old daughter, Diana Ortega
Moreno. The younger woman was also raped. Three men,
reportedly affiliated with a private security firm, were
quickly detained for the murders by Chihuahua law
enforcement authorities, but the suspects made
contradictory statements after their arrests. Moreno was
the wife of a former mayor of San Buenaventura, Chihuahua,
a town once reputed to be a recruiting ground for mafia
gunmen.

Also in Ciudad Juarez, a young teacher and SNTE member has
been missing since last May. Edith Aranda Longorio
disappeared after going to a job interview in downtown
Juarez. Fitting the profile of previous serial killer
victims, Aranda vanished in the same district where
numerous other young women and girls went missing in recent
years. Many were later found raped and murdered.

Sources: Norte, September 29 and 30, 2005. Articles by
Nicolas Juarez Caraveo and Margarita Hernandez. Diario de
Juarez, September 29, 2005. Article by Mauricio Rodriguez.
lapolaka.com, September 28 and 29, 2005.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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