Mexico's Murdered Journalists

--Zach Schubert

Last month, Mexican lawmakers quietly slipped a bill into the books that will legalize small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroine and even methamphetamines. This change of formation is the latest in a drug war that has claimed more than 10,000 lives, more than the U.S. casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. Among the victims are 46 journalists killed since 2000 and another eight reporters who have disappeared for unknown reasons, making Mexico among the most dangerous places in the world to work in the news business.

This year, the US Joint Forces Command published a report listing Mexico just behind Pakistan as the country most likely to become a failed state. Behind the instability, the entrenched battle between rival drug cartels and federal forces offers little promise of a foreseeable end. This week, RUTV will explore its source as well as its wide-ranging effects on life in the country.

At their roots, the Mexican cartels are an outgrowth of the Colombian cocaine industry. When the Colombian police, assisted by U.S. operatives, largely neutralized the primary Colombian cartels in the early 1990s, drug trafficking in Mexico exploded as a result of relaxed competition. In response, newly elected Mexican president Felipe Calderón launched 45,000 army troops in a massive anti-drug trafficking war in 2006. The results have been mixed. While record numbers of cartel leaders have been arrested, this has led in part to the splintering of several trafficking groups. These new rivalries have fueled the bloodshed.

Although they are armed with the machine guns and grenade launchers of a regular army, the drug traffickers' greatest weapon has been official corruption. Last April, General Sergio Aponte made a staggering list of accusations against police in the state of Baja California. According to Aponte, bribed police units had been acting as bodyguards for local cartels. Such occurrences are common in Mexico, where small time drug arrests are typically only used as opportunities for extortion.

Another tactic used by the traffickers has been the intimidation and murder of journalists to encourage censorship by the press. More journalists have been killed in Mexico than in any other country in the Americas. Further, these murders are rarely investigated. Joining us this week will be Mark Read of Friends of Brad Will, an organization founded in the memory of an American journalist who was killed while covering the 2006 teachers' strike in Oaxaca.

Also joining us via skype is Jorge Luis Sierra, a Mexican investigative reporter and editor based in McAllen, Texas, at the US-Mexico border. He reports on a range of conflict-related topics such as drug trafficking, organized crime, counterinsurgency, gangs and immigration. Sierra has a 24-year long journalism career working both as an editor and a writer for influential newspapers and magazines in Mexico and the United States.

We're live at 6pm (EDT) Wednesday and on demand at www.livestream.com/reportersuncensored.

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Comments

[1sparrow]

it means .. just go find a pot head, take his car, house, bank account, and NOT HAVE TO RESELL his pot. this is a lessening of the current laws.

[zizyphus]

That style of corruption is happening in the US, as well, and we can expect more of it if we maintain the antiquated laws against personal drug use.

They know that over 50 million people in the US use recreational substances. Fifty million people to shake down, and extort money from. It has become the way local law enforcement fills their coffers. Just go find a pothead, take his car, house, bank account, easy. Resell the pot.

It has all led to the complete and utter corruption of government at all levels, and the loss of our constitutional rights. It is stupid, ineffective, and will ultimately lead to a breakdown in society as the failed drug war policies of past and present generations bear fruit: a population where half of the people are employed by locking up the other half.

[dadw5boys]

So those who control the news control the people and the Government in Mexico.

[Blake Parker]

Re murdered journalists. I don't mean to sound crass but that guy got way too close for his own safety. I realize that journalists do that but there can be dangers. When bullets are flying you have to react properly. If there's only one source and you can, you shot back. If there's more than one source it's 'hasta luego' time. Another thing, stuff like this has been going on for years in Central and South America. I've traveled all over there so many times in the past 35 years I can't even keep count. In Peru it was very common for journalists to simply disappear and it happened so often people started to not think about it too much. I had to get a legal permit to carry a firearm in Peru simply for safety. Similar in Mexico but I couldn't get a legal permit there. The video shown depicts a very brave journalist. Many are so dedicated to their jobs they risk their life frequently, that's not uncommon. One has to give respect to all of them. I for one can accurately identify with what's going on in that video. I's not at all unlike occurrences I've witnessed multiple times.