Violence Against Journalists in Mexico
by Sophie Friedman

Mexico is no stranger to corruption. It has been well documented that bribery, extortion, and kickbacks have plagued all branches of government from the highest to lowest ranking official. Historically, tension amongst authority figures arose from the division between federal and local strong men. Democratically elected officials ran the national government, yet there existed a number of local bosses or jefes that disrupted and continue to disrupt equal and fair implementation of the law.[1] Making matters worse, corrupt courts no longer serve as impartial judges and, therefore, undermine the separation of powers risking the rights and protections of its citizens.[2] Finally, law enforcement agents have come to expect and accept mordidas (bribes) in exchange for protection. The public is partially responsible for these developments, offering bribes to bureaucrats in an effort to attain permits or avoid fines such as traffic tickets. As journalist Stephen Morrison explains:

“The Mexican bureaucracy has long penetrated virtually all activities of social life […] in short, [this] leaves the citizen at the mercy of the whims of the bureaucrat, making it quite rational for the citizen to accede to the mordida.

But what is the source of corruption? In the present, drugs, more specifically, drug traffickers.

Today, the trafficking of drugs from Central and South America through Mexico and onto the United States has transformed areas of the vast Mexican state into war zones.”

Rise of The Drug Cartels

According to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (USDEA), by the end of the 1980s, traffickers from Mexico had replaced Colombian drug cartels on deliveries to the United States.[3] The drug cartels—based in four cities that include Culiacan, Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and Matamoros—move more than seven tons of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin [into] the United States every day.”[4] The exchange of these and other drugs generates earnings upwards of 8 billion dollars annually.[5] It has been speculated that drug money has contributed to political campaigns, but that drug cartels do not have a political favorite.[6] The chief of staff under the Salinas administration was implicated in drug trafficking by the international media.[7] “Garcia Abrego [Gulf Cartel leader] himself declared in testimony during his trial in the United States that his cartel obtained the cocaine it smuggled into the United States from the seizures made by the attorney general’s office of other drug cartels.”[8] The emergence of drug cartels in conjunction with President Felipe Calderón’s war on drug trafficking (see “Inside Mexico’s Drug Wars”) have divided towns and made unthinkable acts of violence a daily occurrence.

Threats to Journalists

Mexico’s free press has been one of the chief casualties in the war on drugs. Journalists have put their own lives and their families’ lives at risk to report on corruption and violence in relation to drug trafficking. But recent deaths have made editors and journalists across the country uneasy about publishing stories featuring drug cartels and for good reason. According to the Los Angeles Times, “From January 2004 to December 2009, a total of 27 writers – 26 print journalists and one author – were slain, seven of them in 2009 alone. Five others have disappeared […] few if any of these crimes have been properly investigated or prosecuted”[9]

In the fall of 2008, a decapitated head, that of a drug lord, was placed beneath a statue of a newspaper boy in the Plaza of Journalists. The threat was unmistakable. Weeks after the incident, Mexican crime reporter Armando Rodríguez was shot ten times in front of his young daughter in the driveway of their home.[10] Culiacan’s El Debate newspaper offices then had two grenades explode outside of their building in the fall of 2008.[11] Reporter José Antuna was abducted and later strangled to death a week after he reported on police corruption in Durango. Antuna was also investigating the death of another journalist killed in May of 2009.[12]

In response to unwavering threats, “Most journalists continue to do their jobs but concede they are limiting their coverage of the carnage […].”[13] As a result, “Editors at many newspapers and television stations now say they no longer deeply investigate the cartels or attempt to plot the intersecting lines of corruption and cash between the drug traffickers and their partners in the government, business and law enforcement.”[14] In effect, the drug cartels and their accomplices are winning. Without the press there are few if any checks left on the government and criminals alike.

International outcry

The Mexican press has few allies representing their interests, but among the few include the United Nations, International PEN, and The Inter American Press Association. All three organizations are concerned with protecting the right to free speech and a free press. Member states of the UN have drawn attention and concern for violence against Mexican journalists in the Universal Periodic Review. The international organization has also scolded the Mexican government for doing little in reaction to the murders. Despite President Calderon’s acknowledgement of the problem and pledge to do more, little has actually be done.[15] In an open letter to the Mexican government in January of this year, Marian Botsford Fraser, chair of the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN, wrote:

“PEN […] understands that while organized crime groups are responsible for some attacks, state agents, especially government officials and the police, are thought to be the main perpetrators of violence against journalists, and complicity in its continuance.”

The Inter American Press Association announced that same month it would send a delegation to meet with President Calderon in a push for legal protection of the press and a restructuring of the Office of Special Prosecutor for Crimes Committed Against Journalists.

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Bibliography:

Anderson, John Ward. “Mexican Standoff.” Foreign Policy 110 (1998): 191-93

Booth, William. “Violence Against Journalists Grows in Mexico’s Drug War: Latest Victim Gunned Down in Front of Home.” The Washington Post (Nov. 25, 2008): 1-3

Chabat, Jorge. “Mexico’s War on Drugs: No Margin for Maneuver.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 582 (2002): 134-148

Cohan, Tony, Mitchell, Tamsin. “Mexico’s killing fields.” The Los Angeles Times (Feb. 15, 2010): 1-2

Fraser, Marian B. “A Year after Mexico’s Commitments at the UN, Violence against Journalists and Impunity Continue Unabated.” Letter to H.E. Sr. Fernando Francisco Gómez-Mont Urueta. 19 Jan. 2010. Web. Apr.-May 2010. <http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/news/a-year-after-mexico-s-commitments-at-the-un-violence-against-journalists-and-impunity-continue-unabated>.

Inter American Press Association. Ongoing Violence against Journalists in Mexico Alarms IAPA. 20 Jan. 2010. Web. Apr.-May 2010. <http://www.sipiapa.org/v4/index.php?page=cont_comunicados&seccion=detalles&id=4316&idioma=us>.

Morris, Stephen D. “Corruption and the Mexican Political System: Continuity and Change.” Third World Quarterly20 (1999): 623-643.

Skidmore, Thomas E., Peter H. Smith, and James N. Green , Modern Latin America. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.