Drug violence overwhelms Mexican border city By Andres Oppenheimer

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico The mafiastyle executions among drug traffickers
and the forced disappearance of suspected drug dealers in the hands of
paramilitary death squads is turning this border city into an expanded
version of Chicago in the '30s.

More than 20 people, including four doctors and several other professionals
with alleged drug ties, have been murdered while dining in elegant
restaurants or walking on downtown streets in broad daylight.

A little more than a week ago, Sergio Roldan, a 35yearold attorney for
wellknown drug traffickers, was murdered on his way to his office by a
gunman who was waiting for him at a corner.

His law partner, Ricardo Reyna, had been critically wounded Aug. 23 after
engaging in a cartocar shootout with three other gunmen.

But the cases that have caused the greatest concern are those of people who
have disappeared, allegedly after being abducted by members of Mexican
security forces in antidrug operations. Many are believed to be innocent
bystanders in the U.S.spurred war on drugs.

At least eight of the missing hold American citizenship, according to the
Association of Relatives and Friends of Disappeared People.

"My son Saul Jr. was a technician who was doing business with law
enforcement agencies, selling them devices to intercept cellular and
satellite phone calls," said Saul O. Sanchez Sr. of Laredo, Texas, whose
missing son was a U.S. citizen and Navy veteran. "He was not involved in
drugs."

A judicial police informer had brought theater tickets to Sanchez Jr. and
his wife on May 24, 1994, for a performance later that evening. The man had
told them he would wait for the couple at the theater.

"They left home, and they have been missing ever since," says Sanchez Sr., a
retired businessman who helped found the association in June, after three
years of unsuccessful attempts to find his son.

The association has headquarters in El Paso, Texas, across the bridge from
Ciudad Juarez, because many of its members are afraid of holding their
meetings on the Mexican side of the border. Its Ciudad Juarez branch has
recruited families of 56 people who have disappeared in recent years.

But human rights leaders estimate the number is much higher. They say as
many as 187 people are missing after arrest or abduction by unidentified
men, often wearing combatstyle black uniforms and believed to be members of
security forces.

Amnesty International, the Londonbased human rights group, said in an
unusually strong letter to President Ernesto Zedillo last month the number
of forced disappearances has risen dramatically over the past three years,
leading to a "serious deterioration" of Mexico's human rights record.

"Military or paramilitary squads that come from other states are waging a
dirty war," said Relatives and Friends in El Paso. "They are "disappearing"
people who they think are involved in drug trafficking."

Leaders of the association say the group has received only "evasive" answers
from Mexican and U.S. government agencies, who they say are reluctant to
focus on the issue because it would hurt their promotion of Mexico as a
trustworthy ally in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexican and U.S. officials say they are trying as hard as they can to solve
the cases.

To press their case, association is threatening to start a propaganda
campaign at border crossings and international airports urging Americans to
stop visiting Mexico. Ciudad Juarez depends heavily on foreign investment
for its giant maquiladora assembly industries.

"We will print tens of thousands of leaflets, showing newspaper headlines,"
he said, pointing at a copy of the El Paso HeraldPost with a banner
headline reading "Missing in Mexico: Disappearances mount in war on drugs."

While El Paso business leaders say the violence in Ciudad Juarez has not yet
created panic on their side of the border, some fear a boycott campaign
could hurt both sides by discouraging foreign investors from coming here.
Ciudad Juarez and El Paso are in effect one city divided by an international
bridge. Ciudad Juarez is a major center of maquiladora assembly plants, many
of which are owned by U.S. companies.

The El Pasobased U.S. Army base of Fort Bliss has prohibited its personnel
from crossing to the Mexican side because of the violence.

Mexican and U.S. officials say some of the missing people are just like
those killed in the recent mafiastyle executions drug traffickers killed
by rival gangs in the fight for control of the Juarez drug cartel.

The giant narcotics cartel has been in disarray since the accidental death
July 4 of Mexico's biggest drug lord, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, which has
unleashed a power struggle for his succession, they say. Ciudad Juarez was
the business base of Carrillo Fuentes, also known as the "Lord of the
Skies." It is also believed to be the main entry point for Mexican cocaine
shipments into U.S. territory.

But a sizable number of families of the disappeared say their relatives were
abducted by overzealous security forces pressed for results by U.S.
antidrug agencies. Many cite witnesses to back up their claims.

Ernesto Ontiveros, a retired army lieutenant whose 32yearold son Victor
Hugo Ontiveros disappeared in September 1996, says neighbors saw him picked
up on the street near his home by "people in uniforms and the type of cars
used by the judicial police."

Omar Castao, another relative of a missing person, said his 35yearold
brother was last seen in the hands of Mexican and U.S. antinarcotics agents
in June 1996. Ivan Horacio Castao, who had served six months in jail for
narcotics trafficking in the late '80s, vanished after going to pick up his
truck at a repair shop, his brother says. Days later, when the family began
searching for him, members of an antikidnapping police unit found his truck
in front of a shopping mall, with two Mexican and two U.S. antinarcotics
agents aboard.

"The Mexicans identified themselves as members of the National Institute for
the Combat of Drugs and said they were in the midst of an antidrug
operation," Omar Castao says. "They called their superiors in Mexico City,
and the members of the antikidnapping force were asked to leave them
alone."

The antikidnapping agents have since been reassigned, and efforts to locate
them and get them to testify have been unsuccessful, Omar Castao says. The
Castao family has since moved to El Paso. Omar Castao says he has not
crossed the bridge to Ciudad Juarez since his brother disappeared. "We fear
for our lives, he says. "We don't know what happened to Ivan, and what could
happen to us."

(c) 1997, The Miami Herald.

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