Search file for Claudia Uruchurtu, who disappeared on March 26 in Asunción Nochixtlán (Oaxaca) .RS
The last trace of Claudia Uruchurtu leads to the City Council of Asunción Nochixtlán, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The activist disappeared on March 26 after participating in a protest against the authorities. "She was last seen outside the municipal building and then she did not return home," says Sara Uruchurtu, her sister. A month and a half later, the investigations returned to the place where it all began and the mayor, Lizbeth Huerta, has been arrested as the main suspect in the case. This week, a judge determined that there was sufficient evidence to initiate the trial against the municipal president, nominated by Morena, and two policemen. 50 days after the crime, however, the main question remains the same: Where is Claudia Uruchurtu? "In this point,the mayor and the other detainees would be expected to cooperate and say where they have her, but they are criminals, at the end of the day, "says the sister," they think and act like criminals. "
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Claudia Uruchurtu, 48, was wearing a dark blue denim jacket, a white T-shirt,
jeans
and a black cap, according to the search card. In the last protest, the residents of Asunción Nochixtlán demonstrated because a businessman who had gone to the City Hall to collect a bill that the authorities owed him was beaten and detained. The beating reached such a point that the man suffered a skull fracture and the protesters demanded that he be released and transferred to a hospital for medical attention, the family says.
Uruchurtu had been denouncing embezzlement, diversion of resources and abuses of power for several years in that community in the Mixtec region of Oaxaca, where six out of every 10 inhabitants live in a situation of poverty or extreme poverty, according to official data. “She said that it couldn't be possible to steal from the poorest of the poor,” says her sister.
"He became a very uncomfortable person for the municipal president," he adds. The activist accused the mayor of putting her family on the City Council's payroll, showing off jewelry, watches and luxury clothes, and buying the latest model cars while the population lacked the most basic services, such as drainage and paved streets. Already with the pandemic, Uruchurtu denounced that Mayor Huerta had used resources destined to combat covid-19 to finance her re-election in the elections on June 6. "Morena must ask for forgiveness and not votes" was the claim of Uruchurtu's relatives after the arrest of the politician on May 7. "They are not obvious irregularities, but challenging," explains his sister, although he clarifies that "there are criminals in all political parties."
The activist Claudia Uruchurtu, who disappeared on March 26.RS
The family assures that as Uruchurtu documented the complaints, the attacks against him increased.
"The president has a group that controls and intimidates the population: they had her monitored, they knew where she lived and they started a smear campaign," says the victim's sister and assures that the intimidation had escalated to the point of robbery and physical assaults against her and her son.
"It became more and more personal," he laments.
Huerta's family, on the other hand, maintains that he is innocent and that it was “arbitrary detention” and “abuse of power”.
The search was late. Oaxaca still does not have a State Search Commission, despite the fact that it had to take office since April 2018. The investigations on the ground began about 20 days after the forced disappearance, in mid-April. The case has had two tracks: the judicial process against those responsible and the tracking of the victim. The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said that justice would be served, regardless of whether Huerta belonged to his political party. "We trust the authorities and that justice will be done," say his relatives.
Uruchurtu has Mexican and United Kingdom nationality. And the case has reached the doors of the British Parliament, where the representatives of the families have appealed to the Mexican Government to clarify the facts. The United Nations Organization has also joined the demands for his appearance alive, along with several civil associations in Oaxaca. López Obrador announced last Tuesday that a protected witness in the investigation assures that the activist was murdered. "The order had supposedly come from the municipal president," said the president. The state prosecutor, Arturo Peimbert, who has supported the relatives in the search process, also told the press that it is most likely that "he was dead," although no line of investigation has yet been ruled out.
"The last thing we can do is lose hope," says Sara Uruchurtu and extends the call to anyone who has seen her to give any information about her whereabouts. "In this country people are found by family members and communities, that is why we need citizens to help us," asks his sister. The crisis of violence that has plagued Mexico in recent decades has left more than 80,000 people missing and the vast majority of crimes go unpunished. "This can be an exemplary case, which is a watershed in the crisis that is being experienced in the country," Uruchurtu sentenced on the possibility of doing justice and finding his sister. The first part will be settled in four months, the scheduled date to start the trial, a process that Huerta and the two detained police officers will face behind bars.The second is still an open wound: locating Claudia Uruchurtu, the activist who did not shut up in the face of corruption in Oaxaca.
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