Mexico City • Diego Santiago Pazarón is a corporal and driver in the Mexican Army. For three years, he has been searching for his daughter Rosa Citlali Santiago Luis, who disappeared on August 31, 2010, in San Luis Potosí.
On that date, his wife, Leonarda Luis, also disappeared with their two-month old baby, Wendy Santiago Luis. Ten days later, they were found murdered.
With fourteen years as a soldier, Diego reported that the disappearance of his family is due to reprisals by organized crime for raids by military forces in that state.
"We patrol and we find people who are criminals. I think it was retaliation for my work. I rule out a mistake, but the fact remains: they killed my wife and two-month old daughter, and my other daughter, Rosa Citlali, is one of the disappeared," said the soldier.According to the corporal, the attack on his family happened six months before the arrest of Julian Zapata, El Piolín, allegedly responsible for the killing of U.S. agent Jaime Zapata, which occurred in February of 2011.
"In my work, there will be reprisals, because they know very well that we are an institution that fights organized crime. I do not deny that there will be retaliation against us," insisted Corporal Diego Santiago Pazarón.The soldier reported that the state's prosecutor's office where the case is assigned threatened to shelve the case if he continues to conduct investigations to find his daughter.
"I'm showing my face. It doesn't worry me to show my face, because I am looking for my little girl. Perhaps she can even see that I'm still looking. My fatherly love tells me that I am going to find her. What hurts me is that they continue hurting more innocent people like my family. In my case I understand it, because I'm a soldier."This weekend Diego came to Mexico City to appeal to the Attorney General of the Republic [PGR]. His objective is that this agency might take on the case. He was received by Eliana García, coordinator of Public Policies for Human Rights.
In two hours he got the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence against Women and Human Trafficking to attend to him, which he has not obtained in three years in San Luis Potosí. In his first trip to the capital, 900 days after the attack on his family, he met behind closed doors with the Deputy Attorney Specialized in Investigation of Organized Crime.
"So it has been for three years [in San Luis Potosí]: I wasn't able to get past the first door."
So he decided to go to the PGR, in order to report the former deputy Miguel Ángel García Covarrubias and request his resignation, because they have tried to blame him for the murder of his wife and baby and the disappearance of his elder daughter.
"I've been accused as if I had caused it, as if I had killed my wife, when it was not so. It is a very easy out. I've always been at my job (in the Department of Defense), and I am not going to leave my work. I am going to continue here even though they may hurt me."Diego's ordeal began when he tried to report the disappearance of his daughter, in August of 2010, and for three years they have refused to issue an Amber Alert.
In November of 2011, a judge allowed him access to the file after he filed an injunction to get an update of the progress of the investigations (file 822/201), which upset the authorities.
"They have told me to stop doing everything I've been doing, because otherwise I will go as did my wife. I am afraid. I lost everything: I lost my family," he said.In his interview with Eliana García, official of the PGR, he said that the last time he saw his wife Leonarda was with a seamstress, who handed her the school uniform of his daughter Rosa Citlali.
His story began when he got home that night of August 31, 2010, and did not find his family. He immediately went looking with the neighbors and friends of his wife, but no one knew anything. He even tried calling her cell phone, "which he had just given her", but it was off.
Citlali Rosa is one of the 26,121 disappearances reported by the Secretary of Government Relations [SEGOB] during the administration of Felipe Calderón. Meanwhile, San Luis Potosí is in 26th place [of 31 states plus the Federal District] with 125 reported disappearances.
Since the disappearance of his daughter, Diego dismisses the work of the Social Prosecutor for Attention to Victims of Crime and the Human Rights Commission of San Luis Potosí, "because they have never taken me into account."
Even the Department of Defense [SEDENA] and Diego's superiors have assured him that the institution cannot legally help him,
"because they say that it is not within their jurisdiction and that the investigations are for civilians."However, SEDENA has given him leave to continue his struggle. He himself has conducted investigations that he then provided to the authorities, but they were cast aside.
"They have refused to cooperate and keep looking for those responsible and the whereabouts of my daughter. Until now there has not been any authority to support me."
Early in 2013, San Luis Potosí announced the creation of a center of justice for women who are victims of violence, which had an investment of 7.8 million pesos [$583,223 USD]; however, the state has not provided specific information on the number of women who are raped or murdered, like the wife of Diego, Leonarda Luis, and her baby, Wendy Santiago.
In the region of Tamuín in Potosí, two cases have been reported. One is Milynali Piña Pérez, 13, who disappeared from Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas, on August 14, 2012, along with four relatives, while driving to their home in Tamuín. Spanish original