Losing Its Appeal

There's usually no shortage of journalists who relish assignments in war-torn regions and other hot zones, where the risk to life and limb is high. However, in one nearby country, the danger-driven adrenaline rush is quickly losing its appeal, as the New York Times reveals in "Fearing Drug Cartels, Reporters in Mexico Retreat":

REYNOSA, Mexico — The big philosophical question in this gritty border town does not concern trees falling in the forest but bodies falling on the concrete: Does a shootout actually happen if the newspapers print nothing about it, the radio and television stations broadcast nothing, and the authorities never confirm that it occurred?

As two powerful groups of drug traffickers engaged in fierce urban combat in Reynosa in recent weeks, the reality that many residents were living and the one that the increasingly timid news media and the image-conscious politicians portrayed were difficult to reconcile.

“You begin to wonder what the truth is,” said one of Reynosa’s frustrated and fearful residents, Eunice Peña, a professor of communications. “Is it what you saw, or what the media and the officials say? You even wonder if you were imagining it.”

Angry residents who witnessed the carnage began to fill the void, posting raw videos and photos taken with cellphones.

“The pictures do not lie,” said a journalist in McAllen, Tex., who monitors what is happening south of the border online but has stopped venturing there himself. “You can hear the gunshots. You can see the bodies. You know it’s bad.”

The Mexican government’s drug offensive, employing tens of thousands of soldiers, marines and federal police officers, has unleashed ever increasing levels of violence over the last three years as traffickers have fought to protect their lucrative smuggling routes. Journalists have long been among the victims, but the attacks on members of the media now under way in Reynosa and elsewhere along a long stretch of border from Nuevo Laredo to Matamoros are at their worst.

Traffickers have gone after the media with a vengeance in these strategic border towns where drugs are smuggled across by the ton. They have shot up newsrooms, kidnapped and killed staff members and called up the media regularly with threats that were not the least bit veiled. Back off, the thugs said. Do not dare print our names. We will kill you the next time you publish a photograph like that.

“They mean what they say,” said one of the many terrified journalists who used to cover the police beat in Reynosa. “I’m censoring myself. There’s no other way to put it. But so is everybody else.”

With that in mind, the following collection of recent articles makes you wonder what isn't being reported by the mainstream media:

"New Border Violence Erupts with Mexico Cartels" (Associated Press)

REYNOSA, Mexico—This border city and others near the eastern end of the U.S. border escaped the worst of Mexico’s bloody drug war for years, but now the bodies are piling up, several journalists are reportedly missing or dead and once-busy streets are empty after dark.

The crumbling of an alliance between two Mexican drug gangs has plunged the 200-mile stretch of border into violence, raising fears of a new front in the drug war, a U.S. anti-drug official told The Associated Press.

In Mexican border cities stretching from Matamoros near the Gulf to Nuevo Laredo, gunfire has been heard almost daily, and at least 49 people were killed in drug war-related violence in less than six weeks.

"17 Killed in Mexico Drug Violence" (Agence France-Presse)

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Drug-related violence left 17 people dead in Mexico's southern Guerrero state, including four people who were decapitated, authorities said.

Five police officers were shot to death by a lone gunman in Tulchingo, near Acapulco, the officials said. One more lawman died later of wounds.

Five more bodies, including two decapitated ones, were found in the Native American village of Tres Palos, west of the resort.

Meanwhile, four civilians were also found dead in and around Acapulco.

In addition, two bodies of decapitated men were found overnight on Scenic Avenue in downtown Acapulco, officials said.

The states of Guerrero and neighboring Michoacan are largely under the control of the vicious "La Familia" drug cartel, one of the most powerful trafficking groups in the country.

Rival drug cartels are fighting deadly battles over lucrative drug routes to the north into the United States.

"U.S. Warns Students Heading To Mexico For Spring Break" (Associated Press)

The U.S. State Department and universities around the country are warning college students headed for Mexico for some spring-break partying of a surge in drug-related murder and mayhem south of the border.

"We're not necessarily telling students not to go, but we're going to certainly alert them," said Tom Dougan, vice president for student affairs at the University of Rhode Island. "There have been Americans kidnapped, and if you go you need to be very aware and very alert to this fact."

More than 100,000 high school- and college-age Americans travel to Mexican resort areas during spring break each year. Much of the drug violence is happening in border towns, and tourists have generally not been targeted, though there have been killings in the big spring-break resorts of Acapulco and Cancun, well away from the border.

The University of Arizona in Tucson is urging its approximately 37,000 students not to go to Mexico. Other universities — in the Southwest and far beyond, including Penn State, Notre Dame, the University of Colorado and the University at Buffalo — said they would call students' attention to the travel warning issued Feb. 20 by the State Department.

The State Department stopped short of warning spring breakers not to go to Mexico, but advised them to avoid areas of prostitution and drug-dealing and take other commonsense precautions.

"3 with Ties to US Consulate Killed in Mexican City" (Associated Press)

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Three people with ties to the American consulate were killed in a drug-plagued Mexican city, including a U.S. couple shot to death within sight of the border with their baby in their back seat, officials said Sunday.

President Barack Obama expressed outrage over the killings, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon promised a swift investigation.

Several U.S. citizens have been killed in Mexico's drug war, most of them people with family ties to Mexico. However, it is rare for American government employees to be targeted.

"Militarization of Drug War a Failure, Mexico Rights Watchdog Says" (Latin American Herald Tribune)

MEXICO CITY – More than three years of using the Mexican military against drug cartels has brought no improvement in public safety, the chairman of the independent National Human Rights Commission said, citing the case of Ciudad Juarez, the border metropolis that has become Mexico’s murder capital.

“What I can tell you is that we observe there has been no improvement in those places where there have been army operations,” Raul Plascencia said in an interview with radio journalist Joaquin Lopez Doriga.

Plascencia pointed to the situation in Ciudad Juarez, the scene of more than 4,000 gangland murders since January 2008, as “the worst benchmark of the failure.”

Though the Mexican army has been involved in the battle with drug traffickers since the mid-1970s, massive militarization of the conflict dates from December 2006, when newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon began assigning large numbers of troops to law-enforcement duties.

The number of military personnel devoted to the drug war has risen to nearly 50,000, including 8,000 deployed in Juarez, which lies just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

At roughly the midpoint of Calderon’s six-year term, the nationwide death toll from drug-related violence stands at more than 17,000.

Comments

[austincompany]

Having been to Mexico several times (including Ciudad Juarez as a kid) and having some great employees from that generally wonderful country, I can enlighten your readers about a few facts. The reason one doesn't hear much the points below from the mainstream media are; ignorance about the culture and habits of another country and fear of being labeled "racist".

The reason this madness is continuing and will get worse is two-fold. First, the general corruption of the state and local governments is rampant and widespread. The culture of bribery and payoffs is quite common in Mexico - and those with money (the drug gangs) usually win out. So until there is a complete turn-over of corrupt officials and the ending of the bribery system, this violence will continue.

And lastly, because of the history of the Mexican people, the general population in the outlying states do not trust the Federalists in Mexico City - even if they are honest and not corrupt. The memories of past empty promises and currency devaluations are still fresh on peoples minds. Much like the distrust we Texans have of Washington, this distrust keeps the Mexican federal troops from obtaining the information necessary to capture and convict the members of the drug gangs. And until the Mexican government can regain the trust of its people (especially those citizens outside of the Mexico City and Guadalajara metro areas) the Federalists troops will be only for show to the big brother to the North (the U.S.).

[dearieme]

It's the USA's bonkers policies on drugs that are driving this. No lessons were learnt from Prohibition, it would seem.