The man who was killed and burned inside of his house on Thursday night
last week was identified as Eligio Ibarra. In 2011, he was kidnapped and
extorted by a group of federal policemen and he managed to escape and turn
them in to the investigators of the Federal Attorney General. Those police
are said to be in jail. Mr. Ibarra fled the city for his safety and he was
reported to have returned last week in order to testify against the
kidnappers today. The first article includes a statement from human rights
ombudsman, Gustavo de la Rosa, about the chilling effect on other victims
and witnesses to crimes and abuses by government authorities. Late this
afternoon, the state attorney general of Chihuahua issued a statement that
the motive for the murder of Mr. Ibarra may have been robbery…and what’s
more, Mr. Ibarra may have been murdered by someone he knew and that he had eaten dinner with that person on the night of the crime… No, I cannot
make this stuff up. And I am sure there will be more details on an arrest
of this accused killer tomorrow in the paper.
It is worth considering these multiple crimes and the possible motives and
suspects in the murder of Mr. Ibarra. It is also worthwhile to consider the
gang of federal police officers caught in the act of kidnapping and
extortion and compare this reality in the city of Juarez with the
statements of the former DEA head Robert Bonner in his NYTimes oped last
Sunday… He credits the “new” federal police force established under
Calderon as the knights in shining armor in the “drug war.”
-Molly
Frontera List 