From 2000 to 2020, Mexico lost more than a hundred of its writers who were working without protection. Only Afghanistan and Syria, countries at war, have recorded more deaths of journalists. As a result, investigations into organized crime, poverty, siphoning off of public money, dispossession of indigenous peoples’ land by multinational companies, as well as the devastation of beaches, jungles and forests, have been cut short. Impunity has prevailed. So far, in more than 99 percent of the cases, there have been no convictions or sanction.
On February 1st, 2000, journalist Luis Roberto Cruz Martínez, from Multicosas magazine, was murdered in Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The murder suspect, Oscar Jimenez Gonzalez, was arrested and then disappeared. We still know nothing about what happened to him.
On May 16, 2020, journalist Jorge Miguel Armenta Ramos, owner of Grupo Editorial Medios Obson, which published the newspaper El Tiempo, was murdered in Cajeme, Sonora. He was leaving a restaurant when several people opened fire on him with different calibre weapons. Once again, we know nothing about them.
Between the first murder and the latest one, 131 others took place. In the middle of that timeline, on 23 March 2017, Miroslava Breach was shot dead while waiting in her truck for her son Carlos to go to school in Chihuahua, and at noon on 15 May 2017, Javier Valdez was shot dead in the middle of the street in front of Rio Doce, the newspaper he had founded years earlier in Culiacan, Sinaloa.
99.13% of the time (according to the organization Article 19 Mexico) we know nothing about who is behind the killings or why they happen.
The only thing that is clear is that the danger journalists face in Mexico is thanks to two main factors, one being the violence unleashed by the war against the drug cartels and the other being impunity. It is unclear which one takes precedence, and, in fact, they are co-dependent.
Why has this happened in Mexico?
11 states have laws that established protection mechanisms; two have links to the Federal Protection Mechanism created by the Ministry of the Interior. 11 states have unapproved protection initiatives and the remaining seven states have no proposed legislation.
Political scientists and journalists discuss the problem of violence against journalists, which in 20 years has taken more than 100 journalists’ lives. Only Afghanistan and Syria – countries at war – have registered more deaths of journalists.
In Mexico, journalists are being killed for a very simple reason, for doing their job. That is, because they tell the story of how organized crime, poverty, the embezzlement of public money, the dispossession of indigenous peoples’ land by multinational companies, and the devastation of beaches, jungles and forests by hotel and mining groups have taken over.
And there is no sanction. The decision to report threats to the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE) or the local prosecutors’ offices is a vicious circle. The response is disregard, stereotyping, corruption and neglect.
The lives and deaths of those who died two decades ago have been lost with time. Searching for the traces of a journalist who died two decades ago leads to nothing, but a grave covered in mystery. The murders were not followed up by the authorities, the families moved away, and colleagues do not want to talk about many cases.
The war against drugs
In 2006, the Government of Vicente Fox Quesada created the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Journalists (FEADP) through agreement known as A/031/06. It was much needed. Fox’s six-year term was coming to an end. During the Presidential campaign Fox had offfered to establish guarantees for the defence and protection of human rights. And 24 journalists – professionals who, according to the former president’s speech, would no longer find themselves harassed for doing their job – had been murdered.
The FEADP was the first of its kind in the world. Its legal mandate was to protect, seek and prevent authorities and de facto powers from restricting or censoring “the voice of the people, public opinion and freedom of expression”. Octavio Alberto Orellana Wiarco was appointed by the then Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora (now a fugitive from Mexican justice) as its head.
In July 2006, the presidential elections took place. Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, 43-year-old, was nominated by the National Action Party (PAN), the same right-wing political party that had nominated Vicente Fox Quesada six years earlier. In the vote count, something unprecedented occurred: the PAN candidate beat Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with just 0.58 percent of the vote. From that moment on, Lopez Obrador called him “Espurio”, a spurious rather than a legitimate President of Mexico. The nickname “espurio”, stuck and was echoed popularly.
De 2000 a 2020, México perdió más de un centenar de periodistas. | Foto: Paulina Razo, Archivo Cuartoscuro.“Espurio ” was an adjective that Felipe Calderón had to carry and deal with. Yet as a child, he has watched his father, side by side with political leaders such as Manuel Gómez Morín and Efraín González Luna, join a solidarity movement based on political ethics, human rights and an equitable distribution of wealth.
If words have any weight, “spurious” became a burden for Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. As such, he sought win confidence in his government. Quickly, less than ten days after taking office, he tried to justify a war against criminal groups as necessary. Soon, this moved on from being a plan to being policy, though later, he denied it was ” a war “.
But by then, it was too late. Mexico had become a battleground. The violence – which had been terrible – became more and more violent. Lives were shattered. Hopes were dashed. The drug trafficking business expanded at an unprecedented rate. And reporting – which aimed to reach out to those involved and tell their story – became a high-risk activity.
Enrique Toussaint, a journalist and political scientist, discovered a direct link between the beginning of that security policy and a chain of difficulties experienced by Mexican informants that often ended in death. “The very areas that were worst affected by this disastrous period are precisely those where journalism became impossible to practice. Michoacán and Ciudad Juárez were mirrors of the violence that began to cover the Mexican map”.
Balbina Flores representative of Reporters Without Borders in Mexico, agrees. “During the administration of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, the violence against journalists that began under Vicente Fox intensified. It did not stop. It continued with Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) and things are no better now, under Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The Perverse Game of Stereotypes
In 2008, the then Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalists (FEADP), Octavio Alberto Orellana Wiarco, mentioned three reasons why Mexican journalists are murdered: as a result of being threatened by drug trafficking gangs, after reporting on abuses of authority and because of alleged links of some of the journalists to organized crime.
In other words, journalists were being mixed up with criminals as the main reason for their death.
The mortality rate of journalists was high during under Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006), but the war against the cartels made it worse. And, from then on, the journalists who were killed were also stereotyped.
What was the point of investigating their deaths? What was the point of investigating why their investigations were suspended? What was the point of talking about journalism in Mexico? What was the point of talking about loss of life?
En 2019, una decena de periodistas fueron asesinados en México, el país más peligroso en AméricaThe organization Article 19 explains in the special report “Protocol of Impunity in Crimes against Journalists” that freedom of expression and journalism in Mexico became a an act of resistance, “threatened by different actors, including political, economic, criminal and governmental, journalists work every day without protection and at high risk to themselves.”
Researcher Oswaldo Zavala, author of the book Los carteles no existen, published in 2018, which broke new ground in the analysis of the drug industry in Mexico, says the violence experienced by journalists is carried out by “agents of the State”. He explains: “It is not just the police force. The violence ranges from threats to outright persecution”.
Whatever the reason, for journalists, death because part of the profession. In 2010, 58 s were killed. According to the FEADP report, Oaxaca was the state with the highest number of crimes against journalists, followed by Mexico City, then the State of Mexico and Tabasco and Tamaulipas.
Print
DemocraciaAbierta SinEmbargo MX | Radio Free (2020-07-21T16:56:45+00:00) Journalism in Mexico: Report for a living, get killed for reporting. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/07/21/journalism-in-mexico-report-for-a-living-get-killed-for-reporting/
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