In an appearance before the Senate, relatives of disappeared persons demanded a law that truly works and allows them to find their children, spouses and siblings. They also called on lawmakers "not to repeat the mistake'' they made in developing the General Victims Law, which they said, "doesn't work."
In ongoing public hearings on the Law of Enforced Disappearance, family members warned that despite the abuse, harassment, threats and indifference they receive from authorities and criminals, they will never give up looking for them.
''Although they bury them in clandestine graves, with the clear intention of never getting them out, as they have done in Morelos and other states, we keep on looking for them. We will never abandon them. The authorities can count on our not resting until we find them.''With courage, rage and pain, testimonies were presented of disappearances — ''like a horror film'' —in which there has been ''complicity and collusion of authorities with criminal gangs,'' denounced the parents of children disappeared by police and handed over to crime organized.
Yesterday, groups [family members] of people disappeared in Veracruz, Guerrero, Querétaro, Coahuila, Morelos and the State of Mexico [borders Mexico City, horseshoe-like, on three sides] demanded that the senators:
''Listen to us. Don't work at your desks. Go to the street, to the places where enforced disappearances of people take place."During the forum, victims' relatives highlighted the abuse they receive in the agencies of the Public Ministry [Public Prosecutors who receive, record and investigate reports of missing persons], the lack of coordination between federal, state and municipal agencies and the simulation. They suggested:
''They make as if they investigate but they do nothing. These officials should be punished.''There were more than thirty witnesses, including relatives of seven disappeared Federal Police, of a soldier, of adolescents, university students, and workers, among others.
Senators heard the complaints, recriminations, accusations:
''The search protocols do not work. They have neither instruments nor technology. Cell phone companies don't deliver call and message data, nor do the banks help by delivering bank card activity reports. The INE (National Electoral Institute) has no arrangement for giving fingerprint reports in order to search for our family members. No one investigates, they only pretend."They charged:
''We look in the prisons, hospitals, forensic medical services, addiction centers, cemetaries. We seek clandestine graves in the hills, where we have found dozens of bodies. Graves are located in Morelos, Veracruz, Guerrero, Coahuila, and in other states.''They disclosed several cases. One case is of Fanny, a young teenage girl abducted for human trafficking in Acapulco.
''After more than a month of searching, we found her. They abandoned her in a hotel room in Ixtapaluca, State of Mexico, where they left her for dead. They cut off her tongue, nipples, they caused brain atrophy. And they were going to send her to a shelter.''They also reported cases of young people who have been placed in rehabilitation centers for people with addictions, but these centers
"have been opened without permission, and there is a lack of official supervision. There they open the door to organized crime and take the teenagers to commit crimes, involve them in trafficking or disappear them.''Nancy Raquel Núñez Roset related:
''I am the mother of Elvis Axel Torres Roset, 17 years old. Five years two months ago, he was disappeared from a rehabilitation clinic. My son was doing drugs, and he asked me to help him because he did not want to die. I took him to a rehabilitation clinic. The owner of the clinic disappeared him, saying that he sent my son to another state with a mission. The owner has been imprisoned, but what good is it to me if they don't tell me where my son is?''Amalia Hernández, from the Morelos Links Network [Red Eslabones Morelos], recounted the case of Oliver Wenceslao Navarrete, kidnapped and disappeared by organized crime. After 15 days, his body was found and identified,
''but my nephew was again disappeared by the Morelos Public Prosecutor during his nine months inside the SEMEFO [Institute of Forensic Science]. Then, the SEMEFO buried him in a clandestine grave with 150 other unidentified bodies."Spanish original
See also: Government Care of Victims of Violence Virtually Paralyzed