page_title: 2011 Matamoros mass kidnapping
section_title: International support
hierarchical_section_title: 2011 Matamoros mass kidnapping / Letters to heads of state / International support
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: François Hollande au siège de la CGPME
context_page_description: On 9 July 2011, affiliates of the Gulf Cartel kidnapped 18 members of the Cázares family from three different households in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. The women and children were released three days later, but the abductors kept five men. Forty-eight hours later, the Gulf Cartel contacted the family members who had been released to negotiate a ransom. After several days of negotiation and several ransom payments totaling US$100,000, the Cázares were called to deliver their final payment on 27 July. They sent the money to the kidnappers and waited at a specified location for a white van the kidnappers promised would deliver their remaining family members. However, the van never arrived and the phone the kidnappers used to contact the Cázares went out of service. The family then decided to contact the authorities for a criminal investigation.
  The mass kidnapping of the Cázares family stands out from other abduction cases in Mexico because all eighteen victims were related. Among them were three U.S. citizens. The family has sent letters to officials at all levels of the Mexican government and has reached out to international heads of state for assistance with the case.
context_section_description: Given the delays and the perceived unwillingness of Mexican law enforcement to investigate the case, the Cázares have sought help abroad. Barbier also reached out to Europe and wrote letters to the governments of France and Germany (the former because Rodolfo Cázares was a French citizen and the latter because he was a symphony conductor with legal residence there). In France, she issued a formal complaint and sent a letter to France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy. In addition, Barbier reached out to the media to talk about the kidnapping and called for the freedom of her husband and family. "He is the eighth Frenchman kidnapped in the world, but officially there are no more than seven," said Barbier in a 12 October interview with Le Parisien. France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development responded by saying they were working on the case with Mexico and that Rodolfo Cázares could count on all the consular support he needed due to his French citizenship. She also managed to convince France's President François Hollande to talk about the case with Peña Nieto during his visit to the Élysée Palace on 17 October. She also expressed her interest in involving First Lady Valérie Trierweiler. On 5 December, Barbier contacted Gérald Martin and sent a letter to Los Pinos presidential residence asking for an interview with Peña Nieto. On 11 December, the French government stated that Rodolfo Cázares was not considered a political hostage and thereby was not included in the list of Frenchmen kidnapped abroad. This came after Barbier demanded that French authorities classify her husband as a political hostage. Barbier believes French authorities were not interested in the case. They were concerned primarily with solving the case surrounding Florence Cassez, a French native who was arrested in Mexico and given a 60-year sentence for reportedly participating in a kidnapping.
  Barbier also contacted German authorities to work on the case together with them and Mexican authorities. The arts community where Barbier's husband Rodolfo Cázares worked in Bremerhaven attempted to create a fundraiser for the family to help pay his ransom to the kidnappers. Ingeborg Fischer-Thein, chairman of the International Association of Wagner Societies, where Rodolfo was a member, sent a letter to Germany's and the International Music Council saying the community was looking for ways to help in the case. Fundraisers were carried out at music events and at the apartment complex where Rodolfo and Barbier lived in Bremerhaven. The city's mayor Melf Grantz, along with local leader Artur Beneken, showed their interest in the case and contacted the Embassy of Mexico in Berlin on 6 December 2011. The Cázares also contacted the German Foreign Affairs Minister and with Bernd Neumann, who was the representative of the Federal Government for Culture; with the Embassy of Mexico in Berlin and with more municipal authorities in Bremerhaven. The Media and Public Relations Department of the Embassy of Germany in Mexico City stated that they were saddened by the kidnapping, but the case was out of their jurisdiction because Rodolfo was not a German citizen.
  The family also tried to reach out to the United States and involve it in the case too. Though the five men that are disappeared hold only Mexican citizenship, three of the abductees hold U.S. citizenship and others are legal residents of the U.S. The family wants to the U.S. to investigate the case because they believe the Gulf Cartel fears the involvement of U.S. authorities. The family also sent letters to U.S. President Barack Obama and to Pope Benedict XVI, and asked the latter to speak about the case with President Calderón during his visit to Mexico in March 2012. Barbier also sent letters to Catholic cardinals in the archdioceses of New York, Berlin, Paris, and Munich and Freising, asking them to pray for her family members that were missing. They received the same petition letters the family sent to President Calderón in their respective languages.
caption: France's President Francois Hollande in a press conference
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-H2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2012:01:05 19:14:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-H2", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2012:01:05 19:14:44", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2952", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "12415", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/25", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "320", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:01:05 19:14:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:01:05 19:14:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "117/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2816", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2112", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2746", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}