Near downtown Juarez there is a monument to Abraham Lincoln, honoring him for "establishing North American industries, today the most important in the world." Not far away is a simple gallery where the Collectiva Antigona [Antigone Collective], a group of local artists, has organized a series of public performances, installations and conferences focused on Juarez's crisis of violence.

Each week, the artists gather to collaborate and discuss strategy. At a table with 12 other artists and writers, in an expansive room filled with cubist-inspired paintings, Antonio Munoz Ortega, a 51-year-old writer, describes the Collectiva's goals and the problems confronting the group. "Our government is authoritarian, and authoritarian governments are principally concerned with the manipulation of life," he says. "The victims' families feel manipulated by the authorities' insensitivity and this has manifested a greater and greater cynicism here that's really dangerous. The struggle, then, is for reparation and simply regaining our daily lives."

Ortega says he was moved to action by Samira Izaguirre's candlelight vigil in March. He describes the building of an impromptu church in front of the Association of Maquiladoras office as an effort to "communicate through a different language, one that's symbolic." This decision, he says, helped lead to the formation of the Collectiva.

The rallying cry for Collectiva Antigona, as evidenced by the name, has been Sophocles' Greek tragedy, "Antigone," which tells the tale of a girl's persecution at the hands of a cruel dictator for burying her brother. The Collectiva has organized readings of the play around the state of Chihuahua and plans a public performance in the future.

The Collectiva also has begun to establish a visual presence around central Juarez, most noticeably by painting a wall spanning an entire block with poetry written by participants in a recent writer's conference on violence against women. On Nov. 1 and 2, the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos, the collective filled a room with traditional altars honoring the victims along with a giant cross in the center of the room covered with masks, intended to symbolize the anonymity of the victims. An estimated 1,500 people viewed the exhibit. A week later, working with Nuestras Hijas, the collective placed a coffin and flowers and had a bonfire in the cotton field ditch where Claudia Ivette Gonzalez and seven others were found.

"It is absolutely necessary to affect civil society with the intention of shaking the indolence and to provoke some sort of reaction from the people," says Mariela Paniagua, a 41-year-old painter. "People are no longer affected by what is happening in this city. They have lost the capacity for outrage in the face of these acts."

While Collectiva Antigona meets, another group gathers a few miles away to combat Juarez's violence by drastically different means. Past the seemingly endless rows of cardboard hovels in the desperately poor Colonia Morelos, beyond the municipal dump, on a rocky desert mesa in the shadow of Mount Indio, members of a search-and-rescue group called Banda Civil spread out through the hills to search for more murder victims.

Luz Elena Guerrero Guerra, a strong-looking woman in her late 50s with an intense gaze, serves as president of one of Banda Civil's six divisions. Guerra tells of how it began as a search-and-rescue group in 1985 to assist during a massive earthquake in Mexico City and evolved to respond to Juarez's crisis. She herself found the first slain women's bodies in 1989, before investigators had even identified the deadly trend. Today, Banda Civil's members still lend their help during natural disasters but the bulk of their work comes in the search for bodies, monitoring of schools and a citywide crime-awareness campaign.

Ever-present terror, coupled with the impotence of Juarez's authorities, forced Banda Civil's transformation, Guerra says. "I've narrowly escaped violence many times," she explains. "Sometimes it is just pure luck that a bus or a taxi happens to come by in time when someone is chasing me ... All of us, we're uncertain of what the authorities are telling us. That's our indignation. If they [the authorities] aren't interested in helping, we'll pressure them."

Because the group is required by law to cooperate with police, some view it with suspicion. Yet they have had success where most other activist groups have failed. It was Banda Civil members who made the crucial discovery of Claudia Ivette Gonzalez's overalls in February, humiliating Attorney General Rascon and breathing new life into the investigation. And Banda Civil has continued to find more evidence during their weekly searches of Juarez's human dumping grounds.

Besides its role as a search-and-rescue/quasi-vigilante group, Banda Civil has the feel of a support group, providing members with an outlet from the daily fear that comes with life in Juarez. According to Guerra, over 300 people have accompanied the group on searches and many of them are family members of missing women. And indeed, the searches are a family activity.

On one recent Saturday, the search was joined by about 60 participants of all ages and from all sectors of Juarez society, including a middle manager from the Lear Corp. There were no terrible discoveries that day, and yet afterward, as people stood around talked and listened to norteño music blaring from a car stereo, it was evident just how deeply the murders are ingrained into life here -- and how some people are fighting back with whatever tools they have at hand. Perhaps the quiet optimism is derived from the age-old Mexican axiom that death brings about rebirth.

"Instead of spending our time criticizing the authorities, we're trying to find some solutions," says Santos. "We all have sisters and daughters here and we all feel the same. My daughter is in danger. I can't let her live like this."

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