At Mexico Morgue, Families of Missing Seek Clues

[Derechos]

MATAMOROS, Mexico — The last time anybody heard from Josué Román García was last August, after he and his older brother stopped for dinner in a one-horse town about 90 miles south of the Texas border. His final known words went out via text message, from inside the trunk of a car.

Police officers guarded a truck containing bodies found in mass graves in northern Mexico in Mexico City on Thursday.

“They just kidnapped us in San Fernando,” Mr. Román, a 21-year-old student, wrote to a friend. He warned against calling, and added, “If anything happens, just tell my parents, ‘thanks, I love them.’ ”

On Wednesday, his father, Arturo Román Medina, answering calls on a cellphone that stores that brief note, arrived at the morgue in this border city, hoping and fearing that he would find his sons. For two weeks now, the authorities have been bringing in bodies from mass graves around San Fernando, 145 corpses at last count, and with each new grave discovered, another crowd appears, seeking news of missing loved ones, clutching photographs, holding out their arms to give blood for a DNA sample.

They are looking for closure, but as their ad hoc gathering has grown into the hundreds, it has hardened a perception that government authorities have fought desperately to dispel: parts of northern Mexico, including most of this state, Tamaulipas, have been lost to criminal gangs, and for quite some time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/world/americas/16mexico.html?hp

[Judi Lynn]

1. Infinitely sad. It's time for a change in this drug war. The US should remove itself

from meddling in Mexico's struggle.

Calderon was so wrong to agree with _Bush to give the US such authority in his own country. The violence escalated beyond all reckoning immediately, and has never abated.

What a desperate situation. RIP, Josué Román García.

On edit: Recommend.