Drug traffickers are increasingly seeking to influence the editorial line at a southern Mexico newspaper as it reports from a flashpoint region in the country’s drug wars.
“They call and say: ‘You only have to inform. Do not investigate, do not comment, do not editorialize,’” said Juan Cuevas, director of the newspaper in Guerrero State, home to the legendary beach resort of Acapulco.
The newspaper’s offices lie in an area known locally as “Tierra Caliente,” or “Hot Land,” which overlaps the states of Guerrero and Michoacan and is known for both drug cultivation and the turf wars between powerful traffickers.
Drug violence has flared in the past three years in Mexico, with an estimated 14,000 drug-related deaths since the launch of a military crackdown on the country’s feuding cartels.
Threats, bribes and even murder have also become part of life for some journalists, particularly in northern border areas.
Mexico is now considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for media workers.
Reporters Without Borders says 57 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000 and 10 have gone missing.
In the offices of the El Debate de lo Calenturos in Ciudad Altamirano, a town of some 30,000 inhabitants, employees now dread phone calls from unknown numbers.
“When the screen on the telephone says ‘private number,’ we know that it’s someone from a drug gang. They ask why we don’t publish messages they leave alongside corpses, or they ask us not to publish those of other gangs,” Cuevas said.
The La Familia cartel, which launched a murder offensive against Mexican authorities last summer, is one of the main gangs which operates in the area.
As organized crime has weakened institutions like local government and the police, many reporters fear that responsible journalism is also under similar threat.
“I feel limited as a journalist. If we carried out investigations, we wouldn’t be here. The heroes are buried. I don’t want to be a hero,” Cuevas said.
Secretary Marfelia Zavaleta said she wanted to quit after the death of a 16-year-old newspaper delivery boy.
“He stopped coming to the newspaper. Apparently he was a ‘falcon,’” she said, referring to teenagers suspected of being on the payroll of drug gangs to carry out reconnaissance missions on motorbikes.
Israel Flores, a 30-year-old reporter, said he now took extra precautions when out reporting, including regular calls to his wife.
“Some people tell me it would be better to leave and do something else, but I’m here because I like my job,” Flores said.
The newspaper’s latest police section included six large photographs of three men killed the previous Sunday.
Two pictures were close-ups of bloodied faces.
“We show the faces because they haven’t been identified. It could be criticized journalistically, but it’s a service to the community,” Cuevas said.
“If they are from other towns which receive the newspaper, their families can identify them and collect the bodies,” he said.
The 30-year-old newspaper is mainly political, but editors say they have to include sensational crime stories, known as notas rojas, to reflect the growing violence and satisfy customers.
“I sold all my 200 newspapers because they contained crime stories,” said a newspaper vendor traveling by bicycle outside the offices. “When there aren’t any, customers say it’s boring.”
Meanwhile, when soldiers raided a drug cartel’s Christmas party south of Mexico City, they found 16 automatic rifles, US$280,000 in cash — and a Latin Grammy winner.
The presence of the Texas-based norteno singer Ramon Ayala at the gathering in a wealthy, gated community and the lavish festivities showed the audacity of Mexico’s drug cartels amid a government crackdown that has sent thousands of soldiers and police to track them down.
A spokesman for the federal Attorney General’s Office said on Monday that Ayala was released after being questioned because authorities found no grounds for charging him with a crime.
Mexican norteno bands often sing about drug trafficking and violence and many have been rumored to perform at drug traffickers’ weddings and other parties, but few have been caught.
Ayala and his norteno band, Los Bravos del Norte, were performing in a gated community of mansions outside the mountain town of Tepoztlan when sailors raided the house and a shootout ensued before dawn on Friday, said the official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not