Mexican journalists at risk: free speech under fire
By Linda Sorin, for the Authors’ Sala, Jan 12, 2007

Authors’ Sala readings By Leonarda Reyes and Sue McKinney Friday, January 19, 5–7pm Posada de San Francisco, Plaza Principal 2 50 pesos

Mexico is the most dangerous country in Latin America in which to be a journalist and second only in the world to Iraq (2006, Reporters Without Borders). In 2005, four journalists were murdered and one disappeared, mostly near the northern border. In 2006, that number doubled. Mexico has an exemplary constitution that supports freedom of speech, yet conditions here remain dangerous. 

In its first program of 2007, the Authors’ Sala is pleased to present two outstanding writers, Leonarda Reyes (featured in this article) and Susan McKinney (look for her excerpt next week).

Leonarda Reyes 

Longtime investigative journalist Leonarda Reyes is the founder and director of the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics, which promotes independent journalism, transparency and initiatives to combat corruption (www.cepet.org). The national organization is based here in San Miguel. Before she founded this organization, her investigations with El Norte and the related Mexico City newspaper Reforma revealed widespread electoral fraud and frauds in public contracts, which in turn led to her winning a John S. Knight journalism fellowship at Stanford University in 1991. Now she is a member of the Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, based in Washington, DC. 

In an overview of the news situation in Mexico, Reyes will talk about the role of her organization and the whole network of courageous organizations springing up today to protect reporters and freedom of speech in Mexico. 

Reyes has supplied Atención with the following article that elaborates on the chilling situation facing journalists in Mexico.

Growing peril for Mexican journalists who dig too deep? 

Reporting on corruption, drugs, gangs can be fatal? 

—Monica Campbell, Chronicle Foreign Service 

Mexico City —It was another grisly death. 

On Nov. 21, Roberto Marcos García, a 50-year-old crime reporter in the eastern state of Veracruz, was shot dead after being knocked off his motorcycle by a Chrysler PT Cruiser in full view of lunchtime diners at a roadside seafood restaurant on the outskirts of Veracruz city. 

“He had received threats, mostly anonymous calls,” said Luis Tiburcio, editor of Testimonio, the weekly magazine where García worked for 14 years covering criminal gangs and drug traffickers. “I don't know which article triggered this degree of anger. But what’s clear is that these groups of thugs, armed groups, delinquents, whatever you want to call them, are getting stronger and stronger.” 

García is one of eight journalists murdered since January—a toll that gives Mexico the dubious distinction of being the deadliest country in Latin America for journalists. Three others have disappeared this year and are presumed dead. Since 2004, 13 journalists have been killed, presumably as revenge for critical stories on drug traffickers, corrupt officials and criminal gangs. 

“We are not able to establish that all of these crimes are related to journalists’ work,” said Carlos Lauria, the Americas program director for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “But we can’t deny a common theme that these attacks were committed against reporters working on stories about corruption and especially drug trafficking.” 

The most recent victim, Adolfo Sánchez Guzmán, a correspondent for the TV station Televisa Veracruz, was found shot to death Nov. 30 along with a friend he had given a ride. Police say the friend was the main target of the attack. 

Other victims include Jose Manuel Nava, 53, a former editor of the Mexico City-based newspaper Excelsior, who was found stabbed to death on Nov. 16, shortly after the release of his book El Asalto Final, or “The Final Round.” It said his newspaper’s recent change in ownership involved financial irregularities and government corruption. 

On Nov. 10, Misael Tamayo, editor of the newspaper El Despertar de la Costa, was found dead in a motel room in the resort town of Zihuatanejo. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media group, suspects Tamayo’s death is linked to his numerous articles about drug cartels operating on the coast. 

“We’re seeing a wave of violence against journalists like never before,” said Leonarda Reyes, head of the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics, an Internet nonprofit group created in 2003 to push for press freedoms in Mexico. 

Indeed, the most dangerous area for reporters is apparently the northern border with the United States, where a turf battle rages between drug cartels and where high-rolling mafia bosses are known to influence politicians and law enforcement officials. 

In Nuevo Laredo, a city of 300,000 across the Texas border, Roberto Mora, the 44-year-old editorial director of El Mañana, the city’s largest newspaper, was stabbed to death on March 19, 2004. In one of his editorials, Mora had written: “If we don’t want these forces to govern our lives, we first must gather the courage to re-establish control by the citizens and not by the criminals.” 

The next year, crime reporter Guadalupe García was shot dead in front of her radio station. 

In October 2004, journalists staged protests in 16 Mexican cities against the attacks, and a similar protest is planned for Monday. Reyes said many journalists now refuse to cover drug cartels, opting for self-censorship. 

In September, the U.S. media reported on a shootout between Mexican federal agents and drug traffickers that broke out in a posh neighborhood of Nuevo Laredo. The drawn-out clash apparently involved high-caliber weapons and grenades and resulted in several deaths. Not one newspaper in Nuevo Laredo covered the story. 

“We've lost the freedom to report on anything considered risky or sensitive,” said a journalist at a Nuevo Laredo newspaper who asked not to be identified. “We now focus on positive stories, about the majority of people here doing decent things.” To be sure, reporters are targeted in other Latin American countries, especially Colombia. 

For 14 years, Jesus Abad, a 39-year-old photojournalist in Medellín, Colombia, has documented human rights abuses regarding his country’s four-decade-old civil war, drug cartels and right-wing paramilitary groups. Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists recognized Abad—kidnapped twice by leftist guerrillas—for his bravery. “Believe me, I get scared doing my job, really scared,” Abad said in a phone interview. “You’re always worried about who’s behind your back, whether it’s the narcos, the guerrillas or other armed groups. But I’m determined to bring to the public what others try to sweep under the rug, whether it’s the guerrillas training child soldiers or politicians colluding with the paramilitaries.” 

In Mexico, then-President Vicente Fox announced a special prosecutor’s office on crimes against the press several days after a machine-gun and grenade attack on the offices of Nuevo Laredo's El Mañana in February. New President Felipe Calderón, who assumed the presidency Dec. 1, is expected to keep the agency going. 

Mexican reporters are also counting on Congress to give the new office ample funds and allow it to investigate cases linked to drug trafficking, which is currently beyond its jurisdiction. 

“We hope Congress ... gives this office some teeth,” said a member of the special prosecutor’s team who requested anonymity. 

José Antonio Calcaneo, president of the Federation of Mexican Journalists’ Associations, said the new agency is a positive step in recognizing press freedom. Yet Calcaneo, who has received several death threats over the years, quickly added that it will not lessen the dangers. 

“We had more than 2,000 murders related to the drug war in Mexico this year,” he said. “Our government is clearly overwhelmed by mafia groups. How can we expect to be protected if the situation in general is out of control?” In the meantime, Tiburcio, the editor in Veracruz, said he is unwilling to resort to self-censorship. 

“Everyone manages danger differently,” he said. “I say publish, publish, publish. Don’t let these criminal groups crush our independence.”

The Authors’ Sala Special Series presents short works by local authors. The San Miguel Authors’ Sala presents author readings and workshops for writers and aspiring writers. For up-to-date information on upcoming events, visit www.sanmiguelauthors.com 

Center for Global Justice Revolving Loan Fund

The Center for Global Justice has made a 100,000-peso, one-year loan from its Revolving Loan Fund to a network of cooperatives called the Empresa Integradora para el Desarrollo Rural (Integrated Enterprise for Rural Development) del Valle del Mezquital in the state of Hidalgo.

The Integradora coordinates the activities of 12 small cooperatives that cultivate agricultural products. 

This is the second loan that has been made to this organization, which Center founders Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone first visited in the fall of 2003. At that time, the Hidalgo group had one peach orchard, one cooperative cultivating mushrooms and a young people’s group with hutches for raising rabbits but no animals. In 2004, the mushroom cooperative decided to raise tomatoes, and by 2005 they had nine hothouses with drip irrigation systems and six hothouses for the cultivation of nopal cactus. 

With the help of the first Center for Global Justice loan of 50,000 pesos in 2006, they built six more hothouses and hired consultants to write grant applications to various government agencies for additional resources and training. Future plans include increasing the number of crops produced per year in the hothouses and purchasing canning equipment to sell their products off-season as well as seasonally and to market them more widely. 

The idea behind the Revolving Loan Fund is that even small amounts of low-interest credit, especially to cooperative enterprises, can help groups of people attain self-sufficiency, and repaid loans then become available to others. Of the 2 percent interest charged, 1 percent is retained by the Center for overhead costs and 1 percent returned to the borrower upon timely payment of the loan, for their internal savings.

Because groups rather than individuals receive the loan, the benefits and responsibility are spread among many. 

Most importantly, this fosters independence from the traditional market model of production and consumption that hinders small-scale communal enterprises. Loaning to groups helps create and preserve sources of income within communities, thus easing the pressure for workers to emigrate, which is a severe problem in rural areas throughout Mexico.

For that reason, the Center’s Revolving Loan Fund accepts applications only from organized groups, preferably legally constituted as cooperatives or SPRs (Sociedad Productiva Rural) that are working toward self-sustaining, productive projects that will provide work and income for their members.

The members of the loan committee are Yolanda Millán, Octavio Bernal and Betsy Bowman.

The Revolving Loan Fund also needs donations to be able to continue to seed and support productive projects. Contributions are tax-deductible in the United States and keep working year after year as the donated money is loaned and repaid over and over. 

This is a concrete way that concerned people can support local enterprises so that workers can stay at home and develop resources within their own communities instead of emigrating. For applications or to make a contribution to the Revolving Loan Fund, please contact the Center for Global Justice at info@globaljusticecenter.org or call 150-0025.

For more background and information on the founding of the Revolving Loan Fund, see http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/articles/betterworld_loanfund.htm 

Mujeres en Cambio January luncheon

Mujeres en Cambio Luncheon

Thursday, January 18, 2–4 pm

Hacienda de las Flores, Hospicio 16

Entry by ticket only

120 pesos

The objective of Mujeres en Cambio is to help young, rural Mexican women gain an education and thus foster their self-sufficiency, self-esteem and self-respect.

Mujeres en Cambio provides scholarships to more than 120 girls from the ranchos around San Miguel. Scholarships are offered to promising young women recommended by their school principal. Continued receipt of a scholarship is dependent on maintaining good grades. High school students receive an annual scholarship of approximately US$275.

Many of our students graduate from high school and continue on to college, technical school or university. We support these students with a larger annual scholarship of approximately US$1,000.

These young women face many challenges. For example, more than 50 percent of our current students share a two-room house with seven or more family members. Only 16 percent of the households have indoor plumbing. Most of the students have to commute by bus or pickup truck to attend upper levels of school. Some travel as long as an hour and a half each way.

Mujeres en Cambio is an entirely volunteer-run organization. We rely on the generosity of our supporters to raise the nearly US$60,000 needed each year to operate our program. One of the ways we raise funds is by holding monthly events. We are delighted to announce that this month our guest chef is Michele Vallon of The Night Kitchen Caterers. She is going to treat us to an Asian-influenced dish. Michele is well known around town for her beautifully presented and delectable feasts.

Come along, enjoy great company (men and women both welcome!) and beautiful surroundings, and learn more about our activities.

Please note that entry to the lunch is by advance-purchase ticket only. Tickets are limited, and they always sell out quickly. No tickets are sold on the day of the event.

Tickets are on sale at Casa de Papel, Mesones 57A (the China Palace Building), ReMax Colonial Real Estate, Portal Guadalupe 12 (diagonally across from the parroquia), and Solutions Mail Service, Recreo 11.

If you need more information visit www.mujeresencambio.com  or call Roger at 154-6552 (note that no reservations can be taken).