Pubdate: Sun, 12 Dec 1999 Source: Arizona Republic (AZ) Copyright: 1999 The Arizona Republic Contact: 200 E. Van Buren St., Phoenix, AZ 85004 Website: http://www.azcentral.com/news/ Forum: http://www.azcentral.com/pni-bin/WebX?azc Author: Ricardo Sandoval, Knight Ridder Newspapers Bookmark: MAP's link to Ciudad Juarez clippings is: http://www.mapinc.org/juarez.htm KIN, AGENTS FRUSTRATED AS JUAREZ HUNT FIZZLES Families of missing people are reeling and some American anti-drug agents are scratching their heads over recent denials by the FBI and Mexican authorities that dozens of bodies might be buried at remote ranches outside of Juarez, not far from the border with El Paso. But odd twists and turns in criminal investigations are nothing new to frustrated Juarez victims' rights activists accustomed to disappointment in a city where brazen crime and graft are routine. After two weeks of digging at two of four ranches that some officials initially called possible mass grave sites that might hold as many as 100 bodies, remains of eight men have been unearthed and are being studied by FBI forensics specialists in El Paso. And with Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo signaling that the digging may end in two weeks, officials are now saying they're not sure how many bodies they'll turn up. The total may be well below original estimates. Mexican and FBI sources at first suggested that as many as 100 bodies might be found - victims of a war between drug gangs over illicit cocaine supply routes in Mexico said to be worth $10 billion a year. A media crush ensued, dozens of FBI specialists were granted special permits to work in Mexico, a special forensics lab was set up in El Paso. Buoyed by the official ruckus, families of the disappeared began hoping authorities could finally close ugly chapters in their lives. But it soon became clear that scores of bodies might not be buried at the ranches after all - souring hopeful families on the spectacle. "The families are calling me, wondering what is going on, and I can't tell them a thing," said Jaime Hervelles, who directs an El Paso group that has tracked nearly 200 unsolved border area disappearances and kidnappings dating back to 1994. "If the authorities would stay with it and dig up all the ranches said to belong to drug traffickers, and all the abandoned wells around Juarez, they might turn up 100 bodies. But that could take years." Agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, left on the sidelines in this case by the FBI, privately doubt the existence of burial sites with high concentrations of drug-war victims. "I wonder if people moved too quickly," said one Texas-based official. "Everyone is jumping to conclusions and there is really nothing yet to indicate drug-related burials at the scale they've advertised." Madrazo was careful to point out that neither he nor the FBI ever issued an official body-count estimate. Yet in a meeting with reporters just days after the digging began, Mexican prosecutors said they were working with a list of 100 people - including up to 22 American citizens - reported missing from 1994 to 1997. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake