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| Journalists hold up photos of slain colleague Javier Valdez during a protest to call attention to the latest wave of killings of journalists, at the Angel of Independence in Mexico City, Tuesday, May 16, 2017. Valdez, an award-winning reporter who specialized in covering drug trafficking and organized crime, was slain Monday in the northern state of Sinaloa. "In Mexico they are killing us," wrote a dozen reporters in Spanish at the base of the Angel of Independence monument, next to the phrase "No to silence". The messages were constructed using photo copies of the journalists who were killed in recent years. |
MEXICO CITY
(AP) -- A journalist is shot dead as she pulls out of her garage
in the morning with her young son. Gunmen ambush another journalist
while he lazes in a car wash hammock. An award-winning reporter is
hauled out of his vehicle and gunned down a block from his office.
On
Monday, Javier Valdez became the sixth journalist slain in Mexico since
early March, a deadly spree unusual even in a country that ranks behind
only Syria and Afghanistan for such murders. There's no evidence
directly linking the killings to each other, but collectively they are a
grim signal that lawlessness and impunity continue to threaten the
lives and work of journalists across much of the country.
The
killings come at a time when overall homicides rose 29 percent in the
first three months of the year from the same period in 2016; high-stakes
state elections and a presidential vote next year have been bitterly
contested; corruption scandals are regular news; and a decade-old
militarized offensive against brutal drug cartels shows no sign of being
won.
"Mexico has become more dangerous in
general over the past year, and that is affecting the way there is more
fighting," Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope said. "Tensions are
running really high in the underworld, so I think that people that are
covering this are getting themselves into much riskier situations."
Valdez
wrote the "Mala Yerba" column for Riodoce, the publication he helped
found, in which he told stories without using real names. His last entry
was titled "El Licenciado," a possible allusion to a Sinaloa cartel
boss who used that nickname. Valdez also reported on organized crime,
incidents involving state security forces such as a police attack on
three women and alleged corruption during the term of Sinaloa state's
previous governor.
Eduardo Buscaglia, an
international organized crime expert and consultant, said Valdez and
Riodoce had interviewed him many times and probed "links between
politics, society and criminal groups, and that entails ... enormous
risk."
The chief prosecutor of Sinaloa said he
was unaware of any threats against the journalist. But the national
newspaper La Jornada, to which Valdez contributed, said he had recently
received threats "of a different caliber" that caused him and his wife
to be concerned. Valdez traveled to Mexico City to consult with
colleagues, who recommended he leave the country.
The
spate of six killings began March 2 with the murder of Cecilio Pineda,
an independent journalist in the southern state of Guerrero. The rest
came in quick succession: March 19 in Veracruz. Four days later in
Chihuahua. April 14 in Baja California Sur. May 2 in Morelos.
There
were plenty of other non-fatal attacks during the same span, including
the wounding of a media executive in Jalisco the same day that Valdez
was slain; an assault and robbery of seven traveling reporters by a mob
of 100 gunmen in Guerrero over the weekend; and an attempt on a
reporter's life in Baja California Sur that killed his bodyguard.
One
commonality running through all the states where the killings have
taken place is the presence of both organized crime and endemic
corruption, a particularly toxic combination.
Security
analyst Raul Benitez noted that in several states, such as Sinaloa,
Veracruz and Chihuahua, political control recently changed from one
party to another. That can destabilize illicit alliances and force
criminal gangs to adjust and seek new ones.
In
Sinaloa there has also been a fragmentation and power struggle among
factions in the drug cartel of the same name following the arrest and
extradition to the United States of notorious kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo"
Guzman. Chihuahua is in a similar situation. Meanwhile, Baja California
Sur, Sinaloa and Veracruz have seen homicide spikes this year that far
outpace the nationwide increase.
"The bands of killers have no leader and are taking vengeance on whomever they want," Benitez said.
In
some places such as Tamaulipas state, critical media expression has
become practically nonexistent, with criminal gangs and corrupt public
servants essentially setting editorial lines. Self-censorship as a
survival mechanism is common, leading to news blackouts on sensitive
topics. Some journalists are bought off by criminals or corrupt
officials, or threatened with death if they won't accept bribes for
favorable or soft coverage.
None of the
killings attracted more attention or generated more outrage than that of
Valdez, who was pulled from his car a block from the offices of
Riodoce, shot dead and left in the street.
On
Tuesday some Mexican media outlets went dark online in protest, and
editorials and headlines lamented the slaying. "They are killing us in
Mexico," demonstrating journalists scrawled on the pavement at the
capital's Angel of Independence monument. At a wake in Culiacan,
Valdez's body lay in a coffin crowned by his trademark Panama-style hat.
Riodoce
did not respond to requests to make someone available for an interview,
and the paper's future without a man known as a highly prolific
journalist is unclear. In April the newspaper Norte in Chihuahua state
announced it was shutting down in part for security reasons after the
March 23 killing of Miroslava Breach, one of its contributors.
At
a news conference, journalists from Riodoce and other outlets angrily
questioned Sinaloa Gov. Quirino Ordaz about Valdez's killing.
"We
are clear that in the face of these acts words are not enough and a
government response is required," federal Interior Secretary Miguel
Angel Osorio Chong said at a separate event.
President Enrique Pena Nieto called Valdez's murder an "outrageous crime" and ordered an investigation.
But many Mexican journalists accused the government of doing too little to combat the problem.
This
year's killings "are apparently unconnected occurrences but they are
happening in a pre-electoral context and in an environment of tension in
which there are groups that may want to create fear," said Jose
Reveles, a journalist and writer specializing in drug trafficking.
The government "is paralyzed and doesn't know what to do, and that can multiply the violent acts," he added.
Valdez, 50 years old and married with two children, was always conscious of the risks he faced.
"Journalism
is walking an invisible line drawn by the bad people who are in drug
trafficking and in the government," he once wrote. "One must beware of
everything and everyone."
He earned a national
and international reputation as a courageous authority on drugs and
security in Sinaloa, winning prestigious awards from the Committee to
Protect Journalists and Columbia University.
Everard
Meade, the director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of
San Diego who collaborated closely with Valdez, said the reporter
specialized in recounting the human side of the violence that surrounded
him. Beyond merely the production and distribution of drugs, Valdez was
interested in where power resided and how it was used.
"How
the difference between soldiers, drug traffickers, different police
agencies and other armed men, for ordinary people, is almost
nonexistent," Meade said.
He added that lately
Valdez had been writing more about connections between organized crime
and elected officials, and he wondered if those "blistering critiques"
may have been what got him killed.
Valdez had
been particularly outspoken about the killing of Breach, who like him
also contributed to La Jornada. Breach was the woman shot dead in her
driveway while taking her son to school.
"Miroslava
was killed for talking too much," Valdez tweeted two days after she was
slain. "May they kill all of us, if that is the death penalty for
reporting on this hell. No to silence."
