Your prayers, knowledge, expertise, and resources can save the life of a former maquiladora worker who has been disappeared. She is well known by the grassroots organizations and CJM’s members internationally. She was very active participating in workshops, delegations, annual meetings, community alternatives, international exchanges and in any activity organized by CJM in the northeast border region. Her family is terrified and in anguish; they asked CJM for support and not to reveal her name or the location of the abduction because she and they are in great danger. We need the support of CJM members in this emergency, in any way that you can provide. Please see the list of recommendations in this letter and contact CJM staff immediately at (210) 732 8957 (210) 732 8957 , (210) 420 0724 (210) 420 0724 or at cjmojeda@gmail.com.

On December 27, 2011, our compañera was disappeared while she was giving her condolences to another maquila worker whose mother had passed away. A witness said that suddenly a vehicle stopped and some people got out of it and started attacking the women who were outside of the funeral home. She was among them, and she yelled at them to stop and not to be abusive to the women. One of them tried to get her, but she ran inside the funeral home. They chased her, dragged her through the funeral home, and put her inside the vehicle. She has not been heard from since. Her mother has been trying to find out if she is alive. People are terrified to talk because they fear if they do, they will be the next to be abducted.

The members of the CJM grassroots affiliate organization in the region are well known as workers and organizers, and no one has been abducted before. They are surprised and worried about what happened to their compañera, because there is no explanation for why she was abducted.

Her family speculates that she is being held prisoner in a house controlled by organized crime. The family has hope that she will be released. The family is asking CJM members to pray for her safe return and to explore possible ways to help.

Please mark in the following list what you can do to help her, contact CJM staff, and read the context at the end of the list:

We are asking all members to respect the family’s decision not to release her name in order to avoid putting at risk the life of our compañera, her family and the organizers in the field. PLEASE DO NOT give away the name of the victim if you know it or any other specific information.

Yes!! I would like to help by:

_____Organizing a prayer group for her life and safe return

_____Sending financial support for emergency expenses such as phone cards, gas, and food that the family of our compañera is facing now.

_____Joining the Mobilization Team for any emergency needed in this particular case.

_____Building a support network to find job, housing, psychological and other resources for the victims in this particular case and other cases involving CJM members

_____Being part of a committee to explore the process for political asylum in the US, including locating a pro bono lawyer to provide legal advice, and assembling evidence in case she is returned safe and alive

_____Being part of a committee to approach and engage peace groups or human rights organization, unions, and worldwide movements to be involved in this cause and offer advice and support

______Educating members and friends about the reality that workers and communities live in the border without mentioning specific names and details

_____Exploring with other organizations – such as those in Juarez and TEL in Argentina because of their experience with children of the disappeared during the Argentinean dirty war — about lessons learned and how to move forward in cases like this

_____Raising funds and seeking foundation resources to send organizers to places where they can learn peaceful strategies or civil disobedience

_____ Other_______________________________________________________

CONTEXT: In the northeast region, there is no police department in force to help people in situations like this. As in many states of the country, the violence, corruption, impunity and insecurity are rampant. In these areas,

Mexico is a failed state. This situation has deep political roots, reflecting power struggles generated by corruption and reproduced by impunity.

The northeast border region where the abduction occurred is disputed territory for organized crime because it is strategic geographically. The area has cities along the border with the US, and import and export commerce is the main activity that feeds the east coast trade corridor for free trade. On the coast is the oil industry. Hundreds of oil and gas trucks are stolen daily and the gas sold by organized crime cheaper than at the government official prices. The opportunity encourages people to support those who sell cheaper gas, no matter the source.

Last September a young couple was tortured, killed and hanged from the free trade bridge by organized crime in a northeast border state. A note by their bodies said that the same will happen to those who give information to the social media. Two months later, a woman who was the editor of a newspaper in the state was decapitated. Her head was left surrounded by keyboards and computer mice in front of a public monument. Attached to her head was a note saying that she was killed because she was an informant for the social media. Last month the body of a man tortured and killed was abandoned at the same monument with a sign saying: “We know who killed the candidate for governor in the state and the reason for his murder”

There are many people who disappear daily but the public doesn’t know because nothing is published about them. There is no place where you can denounce what is happening. In a northeast border state, a woman was abducted with her two children. The kids were later returned with scars on their bodies from being tortured with cigarettes. The mother never appeared. The kids have undergone extensive psychological therapy because of nightmares. The media is threatened and gagged and do not often publish information about cases like this. As a result, families are terrified and many abandon their homes and lives in these cities because this is the reality they face every day. Unfortunately, there are no human right groups or peace groups in the region that can mediate so the people who have been kidnapped can be released.

Women and social activists are the most vulnerable and they are often targets. People are victims not just of shootouts between the military and cartels, but also of human rights violations by the military. To date, more than fifty thousand people have been killed in this drug war, and many of them are innocent victims.

This is the daily environment that ordinary people are facing along the border and in many states of the country. This is the government that Felipe Calderon is proud of because according to him, he is successfully combating organized crime. We know that his strategy is a failure. Government impunity continues to be the rule and Mexican citizens live in fear.

Please contact CJM staff if you are able to help in any of the points in the list above or if you can recommend something that is not included there.

We look forward to hearing from you.

In Solidarity,

Amelia Simpson Martha Ojeda

CJM President CJM Executive Director

SOURCE. http://www.elmanana.com.mx/galeria_pop.asp?g=1983

A Cross: In the interior of the circle there is a cross: This cross makes reference to the religious groups that were the organizations who took the initiative to knock on doors of the unions and other organizations to form the first multi-sectoral Coalition, and who are still here committed with CJM principles, mission, and work.

Five Circles: The five circles symbolize the combination of all the material things with the infinite. Faith and hope, conviction and the certainty of being able to form a better world by means of unity and solidarity by joining organizations from the three framed countries in the fifth circle at the center.

Four circles: Four cardinal points where CJM will always be present, in all spaces and all places articulating workers and organizations in the four directions in a global struggle wherever multinationals are.

Three Circles: The three circles in the center symbolize the three signatory countries of NAFTA and the impacts and consequences in each of them.

First big circle above:
It is literally true that workers from Custom-Trim in Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas were arrested by the management of the plant in the company’s parking lot during a strike, in May of 97. But this also symbolizes the prison and slavery of long days, forced work and marginal wages that NAFTA has meant for all the young people and all the workers of the assembly plants in Mexico.

Second big circle to the right: Here you can see the unsafe conditions of all the workers in the assembly plants. The multinationals open their assembly plants in Mexico without safety equipment and workers are exposed to unsafe and unhealthy conditions.

Small circle on bottom right: Here we can see the big industries with its entire infrastructure that they are dumping their toxics in the communities as it is shown in the following circle.

Big bottom circle: This shows the living conditions of the workers of the assembly plants who live in belts of poverty around the industrial parks. Their houses are made of wood platforms and cardboard boxes, without electricity, sewers, nor potable water and where the multinationals dump their chemicals, toxic solvents that contaminate the environment.

Small circle on bottom left: This circle shows the flags of the United States and Canada squashing the map of Mexico, as a symbol of the unequal economies of the countries and of the negative social consequences of NAFTA’s economic integration.

Big circle on the right: This reflects the labor force in the Maquiladoras assembly plants that is generally feminine and young enslaved at work and at home, and yet in spite of having employment the conditions of life are impoverished.

Small circle on top: The bread and roses symbolize the fight of the women in the factories of the United States. They proclaim that we do want employment but in worthy and right conditions.

Small circle on top right: Symbol of Peace, it shows that we want peace, but there cannot be peace if the wages are marginal and the conditions of work are unsafe, if workers are exposed to toxic solvents that provoke children with deformities or forced labor, if the women are being discriminated against and sexually harassed, if the jobs are insecure, if the conditions of life are marginal in a contaminated environment. If there is no justice, there is no Peace.

A small circle in the center: You can see three circles with the flag of each country.

A circle with the flag of Mexico: In the center there are people observing the bridge. This symbol reflects the emigration which is one of the greatest impacts of the Free Trade Agreement in Mexico. The workers of the assembly plants of today are the potential emigrants of tomorrow.

A circle with the flag of Canada: This circle reflects one of the greater impacts in this country, where the garment industry immigrated to other countries like Central America and Asia with the argument of being competitive in the market.

A circle with the flag of the United States: A circle that shows the big trucks simultaneously transporting the import and export of products and symbolizing the controversy in which the U.S. truckers were opposed to letting Mexican trucks circulate in US and failing to fulfill the agreement of NAFTA.

A small sun in the center: Symbol of the fight for social justice, articulating the members of CJM in the three countries to fight against the impacts of NAFTA and the neoliberal policies affecting the people all over the world.

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