"Silence Kills"

September 1, 2010

One day has passed since Rodolfo was abducted.

Rodolfo was kidnapped in broad daylight at an intersection as he made his way to his office yesterday. The ransom has been paid. We're praying that he is returned to his loved ones.

We are praying for his safe release.

This is an open letter to his kidnapper.

I wonder how it feels to live a paranoid existance?

I wonder how you feel that your family is eating from spoils bought with someone's blood?

What races through your mind each time you see someone in uniform?

What sort of anguish eats at the pit of your stomach when you see the PFP or the Army soldiers?

The nightmares you must have when you sleep, as the faces of all the innocent people you've killed come to pay you a visit.

The paranoia you must feel when you go to supermarket, the movies and even taking your children to their schools?

Surely you don't believe that bullets respect all of your fine clothes, trucks or your expensive 14K gold chains that you wear?

When you look in the mirror each day do you see a man or a beast that has their days numbered?

When you fall asleep do you wonder, if you will wake up in the same bed or on the cold gurney in a morgue?

How old are you? 40? 30? 20?

How long do you think you can continue to live like this?

How does it feel to live the life of a parasite, the ephemeral life of a microbe that lives only to take without giving anything in return?

To know that the only sign of life within is that you're still able to breathe.

To question whether there will come a day when your life has meaning.

To know deep inside that all you have or what you've worked at is not your own.

To know that you're working for your replacement, who is sure to be there to take your place soon.

I feel deep sorrow for you, your life has no semblance of living and no real meaning.

I should hate you or wish you a painful death but I can't because you are the walking dead.

You always are fighting amongst yourselves and with the authorities and in a bloody war over with the rightful owners of Mexico - the people.

Yet you must know that your fight is worthless, because the territories that you've fought over are already allocated to someone else.

So live and sleep in luxury tonight, enjoy for a moment all the fruits of your kidnappings, murders and the drugs you've sold.

But I am sure that you'll end up drowning in your own blood and defecating in your pants on some out of the way dirt road.

You will end up dying like a lone cornered animal, howling and groveling for the last few seconds of the life you have.

All that will be left is the sweat that gets in your eyes and sense of terror carved in your soul.

The overwhelming fear that gets caught in your throat and the agonizing screams as the piercing hot bullets begin to enter your putrid body.

With the only photograph that everyone sees being one of those final graphic ones.

And society will always says the same thing about you, that you died just like the animals that you were.

Suffocating between excruciating pain and tears.

I've heard that more than one of you remembers God and asks for forgiveness.

But as you lay there dying and gasping for the little bit of air that can squeeze through your gurgling blood you have an epiphany... but its too late.

There is only one place to go to next and that is to hell.

Forever forgotten into oblivion, your wife and family ends up worse than before for they too are now condemned to live in social exile.

Many of us in Mexico might have little to eat and no money for even the most basic of things, yet in comparison with you, we are all rich.

Because we continue to live with our loved ones, sleep and eat when and where we want.

We keep going to church, movie theaters, the supermarkets and the neighborhood parks without looking over our shoulders for the police or the soldiers... but more importantly we all continue to enjoy the company of our loved ones.

We are able to enjoy our birthdays and holidays and we are able to freely enjoy the food, the music, the dancing and the joy of celebrating with our loved ones.

I never, never thought I would thank you, but because of you every Mexican is increasingly coming together.

Joining a united front against this huge drug war and against each of you... and in record numbers

We will continue to defy you, to fight you, and we will report you, we will continue to call you on every barbaric situation.

We know where you live, where you eat, the cars and trucks that you drive, we know your friends and who you like to hang out with... we even know who your children, wives and families are.

You are incredibly ignorant to believe that you are somehow untouchable.

You, your falcons, regional commanders, territory chiefs, other sicarios and kidnappers and all of your entire organizations will one day face the ultimate justice.

That is the only thing that I can guarantee.

SILENCE KILLS

For our family the fate of our loved one Rodolfo Acosta Benavidez was imposed through a failed Mexican government and a deaf mute society.

Where its citizens no longer speak of or listen to each others supplications for help.

Minutes turn into hours and hours into days, each filled with confusion, silence, powerlessness, rage and more hell.

Painful emptiness that transforms itself into an abyss - where Faith seems to begin waning.

The ransom was paid!

The pact was broken.

A promise of a safe release and with it all credibility was vanquished.

So the streets remain filled with their walking dead.

Whose own reality is questionable... they too no longer believe what exists around them.

Perhaps we have all been guilty!

We close the window shut when we hear a neighbor arguing, but who might have needed our help.

We turn our backs to the brother who needs a hand up.

We look the other way without ever looking back.

We minimize the bad and allow it to happen.

We do nothing.

We work at forgeting by closing our eyes.

But what will happen when we finally open our eyes?

Will we recognize the colors of trust, peace, tranquility and justice?

How much of the positive will we remember?

How much will we recognize?

Will it be too late?

How much of the good will we have forgotten?

Will we ever be able to find meaning in this life again?

We must not allow this inept and corrupt government to remain unnaccountable.

We must not allow its citizens to remain silent.

We must not be that society, the one that does not hear the pleas.

We must not allow them to impose a death sentence on us.

We don't want their imposed destiny.

We DEMAND our own.

We have grown tired of living in the valley of the dead and the desperate.

A life of lost faith.

Where justice is deaf...

We must not allow the death of Roberto Urrea and now Rodolfo, like so many other innocents before them to go unpunished.

If we do, then they all will have died in vain.

We must demand justice, stop the hatred, drug crimes, corruption, kidnappings and the murdering of the innocent.

Never to allow any family to relive this nightmare and reside in this HELL.

We must have courage and conviction.

We must have faith, sow hope but demand justice.

Let's quit closing the windows, stop turning our backs and acting as if we do not see.

THIS SOCIETY IS DYING.

ROTTING AWAY IN FRONT OF OUR EYES.

Our Mexico deserves a just government, a fair one, where citizens are heard, where its people can live safely and where families can thrive.

Where people do not keep silent or worse fear speaking up.

To keep quiet in front of an injustice is accepting all injustice.

SILENCE ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING, IS A LOUD VOICE THAT PERMITS IT.

SILENCE KILLS.

This abduction happened in day light on a busy intersection, with aprox. 50 witnessess including several public works city employees that were just 15 feet away. With over 6500 soldiers and 4000 state and federal police patrolling the streets. The first police car arrived within minutes and gave chase only to have that patrol car run out of gasoline. No one saw anything. Fear paralyzes and blinds. Since January, Juárez has had 2,006 homicides that authorities said are connected to the cartel wars. Silence kills.

By Dr Tomas

http://www.unmomentoplease.blogspot.com/



Rodolfo Acosta Benavidez was abducted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 as he drove to his job as Dean of the University Center of Ciudad Juarez.

According to police reports he was murdered soon after he was abducted. The authorities recovered his body Tuesday evening but failed to inform his family.

Meanwhile, Dean Acosta’s family was extorted by the alleged kidnappers of a ransom for his safe release.

After the ransom was paid his body was “recognized” by a state police official on Thursday, September 2, at the state forensic services morgue.

During the investigation, the state prosecutor’s office announced that one of the main lines of inquiry was that a friend or associate was probably responsible for the crime. Of course, no suspect was produced.

At the time of his murder Dean Acosta was working in conjunction with the Journalist’s Association of Ciudad Juarez to develop a course that would elevate the training and standards of journalists, particularly for those covering law enforcement in Juarez.