The Killing Fields
Diana Washington Valdez
Copyright , 2005, 2006, 2020 by Diana Washington Valdez
Digital Edition
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part or in any form without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.
The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women
Published by Peace at the Border
Peace at the Border Film Productions
1700 Northside Drive
Suite A7 PMB 2395
Atlanta, Georgia 30318
www.borderechoes.com
Book Editor: Robert Locke
Photography Coordinator: Leonel Monroy
The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, First Edition in English, 2006 by Peace at the Border (978-0-6151-4008-7).
ISBN 13: 978-0-9777992-8-2
ISBN: 978-0-9777992-8-2
Diana Washington Valdez has done an outstanding job of investigative reporting on a social issue that just wont go away. Young working-class women in Juarez, Mexico, have been the victims of unspeakable violence, rape and murder, over a period of many years. What initially seemed to be a matter of police incompetence has evolved into a national disgrace. Ms. Washington Valdez has shown the way, and highlighted the problem with cold, hard facts learned at considerable personal risk. All that is needed now is the political will to seriously follow up on her good work.
Gordon F. Ellison, Retired
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Special Agent and Legal Attach
[This book] awakens in all of us the stark reality of the vulnerability of women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Mexican governmental indifference toward its working-class women population is shown at its highest forms, clearly depicting these women as second class citizens in a city where the rich, the politicians, and the well-connected have it all, while the rest of its citizenry live in squalor, fear, and an overall sense of total frustration. Diana Washington Valdez has done a superb job in exposing these realities.
George A. McNenney, Retired
United States Customs Service
Special Agent in Charge
The book is a powerful and blunt document, important for its clear lines of investigation: two or more serial killers, low-level drug dealers, two gangs, a group of powerful men, and copycats. In addition, it presents a previously unexplored line of investigation that points to an analysis of femicides as messages directed at U.S. and Mexican economic interests, be they bilateral anti-drug projects or trade accords.
Marisa Belausteguigoitia
Mexico National Autonomous University
Gender Studies Program, Mexico City
This book is very good. It is remarkable for its references to powerful people, such as the narco juniors, and how they may have disposed of our daughters bodies. I read it slowly because I want to understand everything that has happened.
Paula Flores Gonzlez
Mother of Sagrario Gonzlez Flores
I am convinced that the book contains much truth. My other daughter wanted to read it, too.
Bertha Marquez
Mother of Adriana Torres Marquez
Many things about the book impressed me, such as the allegations that people in the drug trade are involved in the murders. There are many truths here, and I would like for this journalist to continue her research . I hope that it will help us to someday find out who killed our daughters and for the whole truth to come out.
Ramona Morales
Mother of Silvia Morales
In her book, Washington Valdez gives a detailed and chronological account of how these murders in the border town progressed. (She) acknowledges that these women are victims of a corrupt society that existed in this part of Mexico before the murders began.
Journalist Diana Washington Valdez investigates the sexual homicides of women in the Mexican town of Juarez. This heartbreaking expose implicates high-level police and well-known citizens in the unsolved murders.
Carmen Ospina
Criticas Magazine
I admire the efforts by human rights activists around the world and fellow artists like Salma Hayek, Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Gloria Steinem and journalist Diana Washington Valdez. I am deeply honored to join them to continue the work on this very important issue. Amnesty International news release. [Amnesty International awarded Jennifer Lopez the Artists for Amnesty Award for producing Bordertown, a movie about the Juarez femicides that was presented at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival.]
Amnesty International/Jennifer Lopez
The Killing Fields
Harvest of Women
by
Diana Washington Valdez
Peace at the Border
Atlanta, Georgia
More about the topics in this book @
The film Border Echoes (Ecos de una frontera), Lorena Mendez-Quiroga, available now on DVD, www.bordDark Suns on iTunes (apple.com)erechoes.com
The podcast Forgotten: Women of Juarez, Oz Woloshyn & Monica Ortiz-Uribe, Forgotten: Women of Jurez | iHeartRadio
The film Dark Suns/Soles Negros/Soleils Noirs, Julien Elie, Dark Suns on iTunes (apple.com)
Authors blog Diana Washington Valdez
Contents
This book by border journalist Diana Washington Valdez reminds us that justice has not prevailed for the families of hundreds of girls and women who were brutally murdered and disappeared in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Harvest of Women: Safari in Mexico will make your heart stop and your mind question why the atrocities that began twelve years ago continue to this day. The cold facts will direct you to the same conclusion that it is only a matter of time before the drug cartel crosses the Rio Grande and these heinous crimes begin to occur on the U.S. side of the border. This thoroughly researched book, with its disturbing findings, is an excellent source of information for people who want to be genuinely informed about this tragic human rights issue. It should be required reading for students of Border Studies. The concerns over what was taking place in our neighbor city prompted the Legislature to address the matter. As a result, I introduced a resolution during the 78th Texas Legislature requesting that the FBI be directly involved in assisting the Mexican authorities in their investigations into the murders. Texas Governor Rick Perry signed House Concurrent Resolution 59 on June 22, 2003.
State Representative Norma Chvez
Texas House of Representatives, District 76 El Paso, Texas
For J.C. Emmnuel,
and for all the stars
whose lights were dimmed.
Deaths that cry out
It was the brutality with which they killed the young women that first caught my attention. That winters day of 1999, I stayed up into the early morning hours reading narratives that described death after horrible death. Despite what the Mexican authorities said, the murders were not normal. And they were many.
Dating back to 1993, girls in their adolescent and teenage years suffered unspeakable atrocities, including gang rape and mutilation. Between 1993 and 2005, approximately 470 girls and women died violently in Juarez, Mexico far more than the 379 deaths the Mexican Federal Attorney General reported for that period. They were killed in various ways: strangled, stabbed, bludgeoned, shot to death. Dozens more are missing.
Janeth Fierro, one of the early victims, was only twelve years old in 1994 when she was abducted. The authorities recovered her strangled body and determined she had been raped. In September 1995, the body of Silvia Rivera Morales, a seventeen year-old student, was dumped in Lote Bravo, an area just south of the Juarez International Airport.
