Mexico Under Siege

FAMILIES WANT ANSWERS FROM MAN WHO SAYS HE DISSOLVED 300 PEOPLE

Santiago Meza Lopez, Known As El Pozolero (the Stew Maker), Says He
Stuffed Bodies into Barrels of Lye for Drug Cartels. He May Be a Good
Source of Information About Missing Loved Ones.

Fernando Ocegueda hasn't seen his son since gunmen dragged the college
student from the family's house three years ago. Alma Diaz wonders
what happened to her son, Eric, a Mexicali police officer who left a
party in 1995 and never returned.

Arturo Davila still pounds on police doors looking for answers 11
years after his daughter and a girlfriend were kidnapped in downtown
Ensenada.

For the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of families of people who have
vanished amid Baja California's drug wars, the search for justice has
been lonely and fruitless. But their hopes have been buoyed recently
by the Jan. 22 arrest of a man Mexican authorities believe is behind
the gruesome disposal of bodies in vats of industrial chemicals.

Santiago Meza Lopez, a stocky 45-year-old taken into custody after a
raid near Ensenada, was identified as the pozolero who liquefied the
bodies of victims for lieutenants of the Arellano Felix drug cartel.
Authorities say he laid claim to stuffing 300 bodies into barrels of
lye, then dumping some of the liquefied remains in a pit in a hillside
compound in eastern Tijuana.

His capture riveted Mexico with sickening details behind drug violence
that has left more than 8,000 dead in two years. For the families of
the disappeared, however, it was a chance to revive cases that seemed
long forgotten.

A day after Meza's arrest, Ocegueda and 40 other people showed up at
the federal attorney general's office in Tijuana, with family
snapshots in hand, demanding that authorities query Meza about whether
he recalled dissolving their missing loved ones.

In the following days, dozens more people came forward with tales of
disappearances. "Please help me find out what happened to him," wrote
one woman on a photograph of a young man smiling in a car. "He was my
husband."

Victim rights groups estimate that there are more than 1,000 people
missing in Baja California, including students, businessmen, merchants
and cops. Their cases have been ignored, bungled or blocked by law
enforcement officials, activists say.

As a potential cartel insider, Meza could peel back the mysteries
surrounding the disappearances, they say. Ocegueda, president of the
Citizens United Against Impunity, plans to visit Mexico City this
week, where he will request a personal audience with Meza.

Authorities are unlikely to grant access to the suspect, but families
hope they'll follow through on their promise to confront him with the
photos. His capture has provided their greatest leverage against a
government that for years has paid little attention to their concerns,
said Ocegueda and other group leaders.

"The government wants to silence what cannot be silenced . . . but
they didn't count on someone saying that he personally disintegrated
300 bodies," said Cristina Palacios Hodoyan, whose son, Alejandro,
disappeared in 1997. "They're going to have to pay attention to us
now."

Federal authorities have told the local media that they are
cooperating with the families, having met with them and taken more
than 100 photos.

The hillside compound where Meza told authorities he labored lies in
an area acquainted with death. There are two cemeteries tucked in the
surrounding hills, and funeral processions pass by daily on potholed
Ojo de Agua road.

Behind the white gate, Meza said, he would fill a barrel with water
and two large bags of lye. Wearing gloves and protective goggles, he'd
light a fire underneath, and bring the liquid to a boil before
depositing a body. After 24 hours, he would dump the disintegrated
remains in a pit and set them aflame.

In Tijuana, the process is known as making pozole. That's because the
pink liquid in the barrel resembles the popular Mexican stew. When a
Mexican official asked Meza what he did for a living, he replied, "Me
llaman el Pozolero": They call me the Pozole Maker.

He earned $600 weekly and said he learned how to disintegrate bodies
by first experimenting with pig legs, according to the Mexican federal
attorney general's office. Meza allegedly told authorities he worked
for several top cartel lieutenants over a 10-year period, most
recently for Teodoro Garcia Simental, whom authorities believe is
behind the kidnappings of hundreds of people in recent years.

Meza's alleged deeds apparently went unnoticed in the shabby area of
ranches and pig and chicken farms. Several neighbors said they had
never seen him, and weren't curious. "It's best to be ignorant of such
diabolical things," said a local pig farmer, who did not want to be
identified because he feared for his safety.

Ocegueda, a slender, intense man with a chain-smoking habit, vows to
shatter that ignorance. After his 23-year-old son, Fernando, was
kidnapped, authorities did little, so Ocegueda investigated on his
own. He donned dirty clothes and a hooded shirt and rode a wobbly bike
in tough neighborhoods, chatting up drug dealers and other criminals.

These days he leads demonstrations, camps out at City Hall, and
corners military and government officials any chance he gets. After
Meza's arrest he went to the San Diego area to meet with 20 families
who gave him photographs of loved ones, some of them U.S. citizens,
who vanished while going to work or visiting relatives in Mexico.

Ocegueda believes he knows the identities of his son's kidnappers. But
his probe, like others, hit a dead end. He believes police protect
organized crime members, fear investigations will reveal their own
complicity, or are incompetent. Some families have been threatened by
police after reporting the crimes. In one case, a man who reported the
abduction of his family was kidnapped himself the next day, said
Ocegueda, whose claims are supported by many families and a
Mexicali-based group, the Hope Assn. Against Kidnapping and Impunity.

"Authorities have told people not to report anything, saying their
loved ones were criminals. . . . Instead of helping resolve their
cases, they threaten them," said Miguel Garcia, a Mexicali-based
attorney who provides legal advice to the Hope Assn.

Last year, the groups gained a key ally when the then-top military
commander in the region, Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito, accused several
state law enforcement officials of links to organized crime. Among
them, he said, was the head of the state anti-kidnapping squad in Tijuana.

Aponte was removed from his post in August, and most of the state
officials he accused have not been prosecuted.

Last week at Meza's compound, federal agents continued digging up soil
samples looking for human remains. Experts and law enforcement say
chances are slim they will be able to identify any of them.

Salvador Ortiz Morales, the state deputy attorney general in Tijuana,
said forensic teams have never been able to identify victims dissolved
in barrels because so little remains.

The site may not yield answers for another reason.

Meza admitted disintegrating bodies over a 10-year period, but
neighbors said the compound was constructed only six months ago. All
the more reason, the families say, to pressure Meza to disclose other
grave sites, and demand other details on the fate of the missing.

"There are many other families suffering like me," Ocegueda said. "We
need to find out what he knows."