Pubdate: Mon, 24 Apr 2006
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2006 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Note: apparent 150 word limit on LTEs
Author: Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times

MEXICAN CITY'S JOURNALISTS SCARED SILENT

Rival Mexican Cartels Employ Violence To Ensure Silence

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - Here, it's better not to know.

Information can be poison in this border city. When there's a 
shootout downtown, even the most ambitious radio reporter will not 
necessarily rush to the scene.

So it went the day last month that four undercover federal police 
officers were ambushed and killed in thick lunch-hour traffic on the 
city's busiest street.

The offices of several newspapers and radio stations were just blocks 
away - but the news broke 700 miles to the south, on the Mexico City 
wire services.

The war between the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels has been blamed by 
Mexican federal officials for about 230 deaths in the last 15 months.

The journalists who ordinarily would report on such violence have 
been silenced by cartel operatives who kidnap reporters and 
repeatedly phone in threats to newsrooms.

Violence and intimidation have created a culture of silence in this 
city of 500,000 people.

Municipal officials rarely comment publicly on the killings. Law 
enforcement authorities seem powerless. And people here are 
hard-pressed to remember the last time anyone was arrested or 
prosecuted for such sensational crimes as the killing of more than a 
dozen police officers.

"When a crime is committed, there should be an investigation, an 
accused, a punishment," says Carlos Galvan, the owner of two 
newspapers here. "As long as those things don't happen, speculation 
eats up [the reputation of] the victim."

Indeed, rumor and mythology are filling the information vacuum in Nuevo Laredo.

Ask why so many people have died here, and there's a good chance 
you'll be told that the dead have only themselves to blame. The "vox 
populi" has it that no "good" or "innocent" person is ever killed in 
Nuevo Laredo.

Newspaper and radio reporters here say they would like to tell the 
full story of the killings. The names of certain drug kingpins 
circulate among journalists and in other border towns, but have never 
been printed. Facts might help dispel the myths, they say, as well as 
the aura of omnipotence that surrounds the cartels. But facts can get 
reporters killed.

The cartels are a shadowy but ubiquitous presence. Longtime residents 
fear their wealth, their armaments and their apparent infiltration of 
institutions, such as the police force.

The pictures of the dead run in the local newspapers alongside 
screaming headlines such as "A Rain of Bullets!" Some papers 
routinely run stark pictures of open-eyed corpses torn up by 
high-caliber bullets. But rarely will a local newspaper, or a local 
official, explain why a person was killed or who the killer might be.

Last year, Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez Flores told residents: 
"The people of Tamaulipas who behave themselves have nothing to fear" 
because those being victimized in the wave of violence "are in some 
way involved with organized crime."

Even people who were close to the victims wonder whether they can 
ever know why their friends and relatives were killed.

The death of police chief Alejandro Dominguez shook Nuevo Laredo and 
garnered international headlines. He had been head of the Nuevo 
Laredo police force for just a few hours when he was gunned down.

Key facts about the drug war are unknown to the general public. For 
example, it's never been reported here that criminal gangs have 
threatened local radio stations and newspaper reporters to keep them 
from reporting on shootings.

Nor has it been reported locally that the "narcos" have kidnapped journalists.

The mayor of Nuevo Laredo rejected requests for an interview, as did 
police officials.

To escape the pervasive sense of danger, many residents, including 
some journalists, seek out facts that suggest that violence is 
something that happens to others.

At radio station 95.7 FM, news director Marco Antonio Espinoza 
disagrees with those who say his colleague Ramiro Tellez was killed 
because he was a journalist.

"The problem did not occur because of journalism," Espinoza said. 
Tellez really wasn't a journalist, Antonio said. "He'd come in here 
in the morning and do the weather report. Then he would leave."

Tellez, who was killed March 10, worked as director of the city's 
emergency and police communications system.

"We stay away from police stories." Antonio said. "It was the other 
job that caused his problem."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman