Now the drug cartels make their own news, forcing video confessions of corruption, murder and collaboration at gunpoint. Ana Arana reports
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The drug war continues to challenge the ways in which news and stories are disseminated in Mexico. While the newsmedia in many regions of this country work under the extreme censorship, organized crime has begun to taken it upon themselves to create news, by posting it on YouTube.
That was what happened last July when traffickers kidnapped four journalists and refused to release them until a local television channel aired a video that showed the director of the local prison worked with a competing drug gang. The video had been placed earlier on YouTube.
Today, Mexico´s media is abuzz because of yesterday morning´s release of a video in which a lawyer from Ciudad Juarez, Mario Angel Gonzalez Rodriguez, confesses that he and his sister, Patricia Gonzalez, the former state attorney general in the embattled state of Cihuahua (Ciudad Juarez), were on the payroll of the Cartel de Juarez. The video shows Rodriguez, who was kidnapped from his office a few days ago, surrounded by armed men in military garb and with face masks (a la Iraq). He claims the siblings ordered a number of high profile murders, including that of Armando Rodriguez, aka Choco, the journalist for the local daily El Diario de Juarez, murdered in 2008.
Meanwhile Patricia Gonzalez has responded by accusing the police of creating the video in revenge for her police corruption her investigations while she was in office.
Legal experts have asked the government to investigate the veracity of the accusations. Hector Gonzalez Mocken, of the National Confederation of Lawyers said the video is a police issue and that the former attorney general should be investigated, without assuming that the allegations are true.
Rather than clearing the air, the video raises many questions which can only cause more uncertainty in the embattled city of Ciudad Juarez (which today encompasses 20 per cent of all the gangland slayings in the country) and Mexico as a whole. Do the armed men belong to paramilitary groups? Do they work for the Cartel de Sinaloa, which is today challenging the Juarez Cartel for the territory of Ciudad Juarez? (This city stands next to one of the most profitable US —Mexico border crosspoints, with roads that connect it to both the eastern and western coasts in the United States.) Are the cartel henchmen that well equipped—AK 47s, military uniforms and boots? If so, it illustrates not just their cartels power but their increasingly militaristic ambitions.
The release of the video shows how important a free and safe media is to a society. In an upcoming report my organisation, The Fundacion Mexicana de Periodismo de Investigation (MEPI) reveals that local media in Ciudad Juarez is only airing two or three stories out of ten dealing with narco-related violence. This even include investigations. No newspaper in Ciudad Juarez could give itself the luxury of investigating the charges alleged in the video, even though they are incendiary.
Mexico continues to be an important destination for press freedom organisations. The Inter American Press Association and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists visited Mexico this week to promote legal changes on the prosecution of crimes against journalists, and a protection plan for journalists under threat, similar to the one implemented in Colombia in early 2000. Under current law, murder cases are presided over by provincial authorities, and international groups have been pushing for crimes against journalists to be brought under the federal government´s control. President Felipe Calderon told both groups he will put in place a government sanctioned plan to protect journalists, which will include early warning alerts, extension of the statute of limitations for crimes against journalists, a programme to transfer threatened journalists to other residences, police protection for threatened reporters, and establishment of a government-media group that would identify motives behind attacks on the press.
IAPA, meanwhile, gave a vote of confidence to Calderón’s protection plan, but warned about a lack of resources for putting the plan into action.”There aren’t necessary resources to cover the magnitude of the problem,” the IAPA Vice President, Gonzalo Marroquín.
The group held a public meeting at Casa Lamm, a grand old house located in the Colonia Roma of Mexico City, where editors from Ciudad Juarez, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Tijuana and Zacatecas told the meeting that they practiced self censorship. Some of the editors were told the group that they would not accept government protection. “How can we ask the government to protect us if they cant protect themselves” Ismael Bojorquez, editor of Rio Doce, Sinaloa asked rethorically .”They can’t protect themselves,” he added, mentioning that a number of state government officials have been killed in Sinaloa.
The debate over protection measures for journalists in Mexico will continue, especially because journalists in the provincial cities, called states in Mexico, need to understand how these measures will work.
Ana Arana is Director of the Fundación Mexicana de Periodismo de Investigación
Mexico continues to be an important destination for press freedom organisations. The Inter American Press Association and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists visited Mexico this week to promote legal changes on the prosecution of crimes against journalists, and a protection plan for journalists under threat, similar to the one implemented in Colombia in early 2000. Under current law, murder cases are presided over by provincial authorities, and international groups have been pushing for crimes against journalists to be brought under the federal government´s control. President Felipe Calderon told both groups he will put in place a government sanctioned plan to protect journalists, which will include early warning alerts, extension of the statute of limitations for crimes against journalists, a programme to transfer threatened journalists to other residences, police protection for threatened reporters, and establishment of a government-media group that would identify motives behind attacks on the press.
IAPA, meanwhile, gave a vote of confidence to Calderón’s protection plan, but warned about a lack of resources for putting the plan into action.”There aren’t necessary resources to cover the magnitude of the problem,” the IAPA Vice President, Gonzalo Marroquín.
The group held a public meeting at Casa Lamm, a grand old house located in the Colonia Roma of Mexico City, where editors from Ciudad Juarez, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Tijuana and Zacatecas told the meeting that they practiced self censorship. Some of the editors were told the group that they would not accept government protection. “How can we ask the government to protect us if they cant protect themselves” Ismael Bojorquez, editor of Rio Doce, Sinaloa asked rethorically .”They can’t protect themselves,” he added, mentioning that a number of state government officials have been killed in Sinaloa.
The debate over protection measures for journalists in Mexico will continue, especially because journalists in the provincial cities, called states in Mexico, need to understand how these measures will work.