As I am writing it has recently been International Women's Day and in my local area a more radical version of the movement has came into being - one advocating internationalism, trans rights, and anti-fascism. This reminded me of a graphic novel released in 2015, and in our first for Comics Explained it is based on real events. Some of the best comics are ones detailing actual events - March is another good example. La Lucha, The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico follows human rights activist Lucha Castro of El Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (the Center for the Human Rights of Women) in Juarez, Chihuahua. The city of Juarez has been caught in Mexico's War on Drugs as cartels and the police/military both commit human rights abuses, especially against women. La Lucha follows Lucha Castro and other human rights activists in a startling depiction of human rights abuses. The graphic novel, meanwhile, is a bleak one. Covering gendered violence and human rights abuses it is entirely monochrome and the drawings are not overly detailed. It works well in creating the feel of human rights abuses in Chihuahua. It is a bleak time - a happy future may never come around.
Background and Opening
La Lucha was drawn and written by writer and activist Jon Sack, and is edited by Adam Shapiro - the Head of Campaigns at Front Line Defenders. Front Line Defenders is an Irish based human rights organisation which helps fund poorer human rights groups in poorer countries. The Center for the Human Rights of Women (Cedehm) was formed in 2005 as a way to defend women against human rights abuses, and later defending human rights activists. Human rights abuses have largely been overlooked in Mexico - in the opening when crossing the border to El Paso, Texas a US border guard is surprised to learn that abuses are taking place. Since 1993 over 370 confirmed women have been found murdered, where over 137 showed signs of sexual abuse. The intensification of the War on Drugs under Vicente Fox in the early-2000s brought a militarised police to Chihuahua which increased human rights abuses. Cedehm was formed in order to challenge these abuses. Helping victims get justice became the focus of Cedehm. There is a spectre of abuse in the opening - while Sack and Shapiro was in Juarez saw the military patrol the streets following the shooting of two people, including a police chief. It highlights that a park is known as Praderas de Irak, the 'Prairies of Iraq', as one activist states 'Well, we're also in a war'.
Marisela
La Lucha does not focus solely on Lucha Castro - we get to see the stories of other human rights activists. The most striking one is the story of Marisela Escobedo - Lucha acted as her lawyer. Interviewing her son in El Paso, Juan Frayre Escobedo, he tells us the story of how his sister, Rubi, was murdered by her boyfriend Sergio Rafael Barraza Bocanegra in 2008. Rubi and Sergio vanished, and despite disinterest by the authorities, Marisela managed to track Serio to Fresnillo where he was arrested and revealed that he had murdered Rubi. They only found a third of her body. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he had shown them where Rubi's body was, the court absolved Sergio in 2010 for his connection to the powerful cartel Los Zetas. Enraged Marisela acted. Starting a grassroots movement the judges were suspended and a retrial found Sergio guilty in absentia but he had vanished. Marisela changed her tactic to try and find Sergio, marching in a dress with Rubi's face on it. She marched through Fresnillo, marched through Mexico City, and demanded to see Mexican president Felipe Calderon. The comic also graphically recreates one of present-day Mexico's darkest videos. December 16 Marisela was protesting outside the Capitol Building in Chihuahua. A sicario (hitman) arrives, she runs, and she is killed. As Marisela was buried her brother-in-law was found in the streets of Juarez with a plastic bag over his head. The rest of her family flee across the border being mistreated by border guards, and aim to continue her fight from the US.
Norma
Another key story, albeit a very short one, follows Norma Ledesma, the founder of Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters). Norma's daughter Paloma disappeared aged 15 in 2002 and was found murdered a month later. Like Lucha, Norma aims to find what happens to disappeared women and find those who perpetrated human rights abuses. Norma bluntly summarises the situation 'There is no way of restoring life to someone no can life be turned backwards to a time before someone was raped or maltreated... so there is no Justice, but there is Truth'.
Josefina
Another major story follows the Reyes-Salazar family, now living in El Paso to escape both the military and cartels. Josefina and Saul Reyes-Salazar were raised by progressives who instilled in them an urge to fight what was right. In 1998 the siblings had successfully prevented a nuclear waste dump from being created in Sierra Blanca. When the femicides began in Juarez Josefina began protesting the murders which resulted in her house being sprayed by gun fire. In 2008 Calderon intensified the War on Drugs in Juarez creating a militarised zone where murders, extortion, and torture became endemic. While protesting the military they disappeared her son Miguel Angel and was returned 16 days later with signs of physical and psychological abuse. Three months later he other son was executed at a wedding, and Miguel Angel was again arrested on an accusation that he was a sicario for the Juarez Cartel. They moved from their home in Guadalupe but when visiting her home there was a kidnap attempt, and as Josefina resisted she was killed on January 3 2010. The family resisted and the local area became enraged by the murder of Josefina - they even started printing the disappearances of family members on milk cartons. In August 2010 Ruben Reyes declared 'Well...here I am' when armed men came to get him - he was then shot. Despite this the family pressed on but as more and more of them were disappeared or tortured, caught between cartels and the army, they fled to the US in 2011. Saul Reyes-Salazar concludes that 'Guadalupe is practically a ruin. I believe that for all these dead there will never be justice...no one will be detained... no one jailed... no one condemned'.
Conclusion
La Lucha concludes in pessimistic terms. It came out that Marisela's driver had been threatened by an attorney from the state attorney's office for refusing to claim that Marisela was working for the Sinaloa Cartel. More members of the Reyes-Salazar family had managed to received asylum in the US, and the Juarez Valley had lost 70% of its population through either murder or inhabitants fleeing. Lucha Castro offers a pessimistic and optimistic look to the future. She states that 'Disappearances and the killing of journalists with impunity is still occurring, but the government doesn't want to talk about it. Our doors, however, will remain open'.
Many of the readers of this blog is in the North Atlantic world (Western Europe, the US, and Canada) where International Women's Day has somewhat lost its radical roots. In many areas it has become an event only for white, middle-class, cis-women, and at its worst openly extorts bigotry - especially against trans women. La Lucha highlights the need for International Women's Day to return to its roots. Abuse and torture against women has become widespread in Juarez and the femicides have largely fallen out of media's attention. My local International Women's Day offers a hopeful future - it resoundingly condemned transphobia, saw talks from an organiser hoping to protect sex workers, and called for collaboration against Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil (and honoured murdered activist Mariella Franco). Hopefully, International Women's Day can help Lucha Castro and the activists at the Cedehm.
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| Lucha Castro |
If you were interested in reading more on human and women's rights in Mexico here is a quick reading list:
-Jon Sack, Adam Shapiro, and Lucha Castro, La Lucha, The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico, (London: Verso, 2015)
-J.Tuckman, ‘Mexico: The Graphic Tale of Lucha Castro’s struggle to defend women’s rights,’ (2015), https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/aug/05/la-lucha-the-story-of-lucha-castro-and-human-rights-in-mexico-graphic-novel; accessed 5 August 2017
-E.Edmonds-Pli and D.Shirk, Contemporary Mexican Politics, Second Edition, (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012)
-A.R.Schmidt Camacho, ‘Ciudadana X: Gender Violence and the Denationalization of Women’s Rights in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico,’ CR: The Centennial Review, 5:1, (2005), 255-292
-http://cedehm.org.mx
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