Guadalupe Aguilar (Guadalajara, 69 years old) has lived for more than a decade in a fight against the clock. His son, José Luis Arana, disappeared in 2011 in the state of Jalisco, when he was 34 years old, and is now part of the long and discouraging list of more than 100,000 people not located in Mexico. “I don’t want to die without knowing what happened to him,” says Aguilar, founder of the Familias Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos (Fundej) association, an NGO whose mission has been to create a support network among the relatives of victims of forced disappearance. This group will be recognized this Wednesday with the King of Spain Human Rights Award, presented by the Ombudsman and the University of Alcalá, with a financial award of 25,000 euros.
Ask. How did Fundej start?
Answer. I thought I was the only woman in the world who had a missing child. When I went to make the complaint, my document had the number 250. I ask and they tell me that is the number of complaints they had received that year alone. Pepe [su hijo, José Luis] It disappeared on January 17 and by then there were dozens. That’s how I met more and more women who were determined to find our children and that’s how the association was born.
P. The search work is almost exclusively related to women.
R. When someone in the family disappears, harmony disappears. I had already separated, but most of my colleagues tell me that their husbands have a total lack of understanding of their pain, especially if they are mothers. They tell them things like: “Why are you still looking for him?” or “stop crying.” But our children are a part of our heart and since Pepe is gone I am missing a part.
P. Numerous cases of revictimization also occur.
R. Yes. If it is a girl who disappears, they tell you not to worry because in nine months you will be a grandmother. If he is a boy, they tell you that he went out there to have a few beers, even though your son doesn’t drink alcohol. So we even have to fight against the system to support the son’s honor, so that they don’t think that he is a drunk, a whore, or a drug trafficker. But José Luis was nothing like that, he was an excellent student and was an athlete. He practiced beach volleyball.
P. What do you remember most about him?
R. His joy; she had an infectious laugh and a piercing gaze. Her whole life was her children. She left two little ones who are now teenagers. A while ago, while we were looking at photos of us together, she kept thinking about how we didn’t realize how happy we were because we were complete. Now I live alone in Guadalajara and since Pepe disappeared we have been disintegrated.
P. What do you do to maintain hope after so many years?
R. It’s my life. I give my life and I give it with pleasure. My health has deteriorated quite a bit, but I continue with the goal of finding Pepe, because I don’t want to die without knowing what happened to him. When they called me to tell me that I was going to receive this award, I cried a lot because I didn’t feel worthy without having found it yet. But this recognition belongs to all of us and that is the strength of Fundej: to accompany us and work towards the goal of finding our missing people.
P. Among his daily activities he usually holds sit-ins in front of the Forensic Medical Service. What good are they?
R. It is a way to get society involved with our pain and we go there to demand quick solutions. It can take years for coroners to identify a body and it is not fair that they do not give the remains to the families. Many women who are going to take DNA tests to trace their relatives come to us and we embrace them in their pain. I have also become a manager in the face of the inefficiency of the State. I no longer ask, now I demand solutions. The first years I asked for a favor and they ignored me, now when we all get together I see the power of the association.
P. How has the Government’s management been with the missing?
R. President [Andrés Manuel López Obrador] He has put barriers for us so that we do not speak directly with him. I’m going to be 70 years old and in my life I have never seen someone so indifferent to this problem. Furthermore, the local government boasts of increasing the budget for the forensic institute, but it is not enough. Even less so when this misfortune affects, as always, the poorest people.
P. What will you do with the prize money?
R. We will be able to create a forensic laboratory to be able to take the DNA of so many people who cannot even afford the test kit. We will also continue to financially support women who move from other municipalities to look for their children. Many do it on their own and have neither food nor a way to return home.
P. Being a person uncomfortable with power is dangerous. Do you fear for your life?
R. I do not sleep. When I hear a noise at night I look out the window to see the street and I continually live with caution, but I am not afraid. I have never had it. I have a lot of anger and frustration from having walked so much and worked so hard and I still haven’t found Pepe.
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