BajaNomad

A glimpse at the lives of reporters in Mexico

Hook - 1-14-2008 at 09:36 AM

The drug business has become so deadly that those covering it risk their lives.

By Héctor Tobar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 14, 2008

MEXICO CITY -- The writer was one of the legion of underpaid beat reporters in Mexico, the kind who churn out four or five stories a day, for low pay and little recognition. They know all about the corrupt and violent dealings going on around them, even though they can't always pass on this knowledge to their readers.

He was going to brief me on the local situation, which involved some high-profile killings, various bands of criminals with colorful nicknames and the transport of large quantities of cocaine and marijuana into the United States.

But when I walked into his office, the reporter looked upset. He bit his lower lip and glanced down at the floor, seemingly trying to fight off tears. "I'm quitting," he said.

"What?" I said. "Why?"

In the 2 1/2 years I've been covering the so-called drug wars in Mexico and Central America, I've traveled to small-town police stations, government ministries and newsrooms where journalists require military protection.

Along the way, I've met many courageous people, and many people whose proximity to the drug traffickers' machinery of death has frightened them into silence. This reporter, the lone staffer in his bureau, was a little bit of both. I cannot mention his name, or the town he works in.

After announcing his resignation, he was silent for a time.

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" I asked. He shook his head. We sat like this for a few minutes, until he finally stood up and directed me to his desk.

He pointed to his computer screen and the window of an instant-messaging program, where a flashing missive declared: "You are bothering a lot of people."

It was a death threat: In the local idiom, to be told you are "bothering" someone is an unambiguous warning.

"They've been following me," he said. An hour and half a pack of cigarettes later, he had told me about a car with no license plates that appeared wherever he did, cruising slowly.

"But that's not the reason I'm quitting," he said. It was the low pay and the unfulfilled promises from his bosses (including a company car) that really had him angry. There was something wrong about having to take a bus to cover stories that could get you killed, he said. The threats were just the final straw.

In the end, the reporter stayed on his beat a bit longer and was transferred to a safer place, where he didn't have to cover so many funerals and drug busts -- and where he wouldn't "bother" people who didn't want to be bothered.

That's how it goes when you write about the drug trade: You get close to the story, and then you step away.

"I don't want to know any names," one prominent Mexico City drug expert told me over coffee one day, explaining how he had managed to write about organized crime for years without "bothering" anyone. "When people in the government offer to show me confidential reports, I say, 'Please, don't! I don't want to see them!' "

The expert writes about the drug war's "big picture," and thus avoids the most dangerous thing a writer can do here: reveal a name or a fact that directly affects a trafficker's operations.

The violence tied to the drug-trafficking business has grown more cruel and irrational as the mad scramble for easy money has grown more mad.

In recent years, the attacks have progressed from ambushes with automatic weapons to grenade assaults and grotesque beheadings. When a ton of cocaine falls from the sky, people barely take notice.

In March, police found 2 tons of $100 bills (more than $205 million) in a mansion four blocks from my house here. I've often walked past that now-abandoned house, fantasizing about discovering dollar bills floating in the nearby gutters like so much trash.

Not long ago, my aunt returned to her home in Guatemala City to discover her humble colonia sealed off with police tape. One of her neighbors, a small-time drug dealer, had been shot to death in his doorway. He had been extorting money from the local grocers and was friends with a police officer. All the neighbors knew this, but could do nothing.

My mother lives in Guatemala City too. Less than a mile from her home in the city center, one neighborhood is so infested with drug gangs that the army has set up a base, complete with sandbag parapets, in the local market.

And it was in Guatemala City in November that I came face to face with the drug dead, a body that had been wrapped up in plastic and dumped onto the street from an overpass.

I don't know who the victim was. The Guatemalan news media were too busy covering a presidential election that night (as was I), and the killing wasn't reported in the newspapers.

Nearly all of the drug-related crimes The Times reported on in the region last year remain unsolved, including the killing of several Mexican musicians and the slaying in Guatemala of three Salvadoran legislators.

The Guatemalan police officers arrested in the legislators' killings -- anti-narcotics officers said to be in the hire of drug traffickers -- were themselves killed a few days later in their jail cells. The masterminds of these crimes remain free.

When I traveled to Guatemala to write about the killings, I met several people with theories as to who might be responsible. I learned the names of families and businesses believed linked to the transshipment of drugs. Officials have leaked this information to local journalists, but no one will publish it.

"It's too dangerous," a journalist said. "There's no one here to protect us. And if we're killed, no one will be prosecuted."

Knowing that the piece of unverified information I'd been given could get someone killed, I wondered whether I should even write it down in my notebook.

hector.tobar@latimes.com

BMG - 1-14-2008 at 10:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hook
In March, police found 2 tons of $100 bills (more than $205 million) in a mansion four blocks from my house here.


The 'War on Drugs' has created vast wealth for people dealing in the illegal drugs. Is there an answer other than taking the profits out of the drugs?


Barry A. - 1-14-2008 at 11:34 AM

BMG------As you know, that picture you posted is just the tip of the iceberg---------there are plenty more of these "stashes".

I firmly believe that the root cause of all this evil chaos lies directly at the feet of the drug users, period. THEY, and THEY ALONE are the real guilty ones!!!

All the rest of the "drug problem" exists simply to accomodate the selfish hunger-for-drugs of the "users".

All other efforts to "control" illegal drugs are futile if the "users" still ask for it-----end of discussion, as far as I am concerned.

Hook - 1-14-2008 at 12:36 PM

Of course the demand must exist for this continue, Barry.

But if the incredible number of dollars associated with the black market could be removed, it would reduce the motivation for committing criminal acts to pay for the high costs of the drugs. This is by far the biggest motivator of criminal activity associated with drugs. It's not simply getting hopped up on drugs and then deciding to go out and kill and maim. It becomes a common byproduct as you attempt to steal or kidnap to pay for the drugs.

And, of course, there is the underground economy associated with this amount of drug money that continues to support significant numbers of persons who can make it without a conventional job.

Where has prohibition ever worked?

Legalize it, tax it, treat it clinically like we did with alcohol. Like we do with tobacco.

Who's gonna risk their lives if cocaine, meth or pot is cheap and available through legal means?

Will there be high publicity, drug-crazed incidents involving people out of their minds? OF course! Just like there is with alcohol. Accept it as a lesser evil to the violence of prohibition.

Just what have we spent on this WAR ON DRUGS over the years with mediocre results?

Barry A. - 1-14-2008 at 05:09 PM

Hook-----

My arguement is not with your premise here----I am actually coming around to agreeing with you, except for Meth and the really "hard drugs"-----that is still a stretch for me to accept.

But MY statement is simply that the blame lies with the users, and we should never forget that, and THEY should take/accept responsibility for the violence and mayhem their "habit" produces.

I have no problem with putting THEM in jail and throwing away the key----their crime is a crime against humanity, in my mind.

BMG - 1-14-2008 at 06:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Barry A.
BMG------As you know, that picture you posted is just the tip of the iceberg---------there are plenty more of these "stashes".

I firmly believe that the root cause of all this evil chaos lies directly at the feet of the drug users, period. THEY, and THEY ALONE are the real guilty ones!!!

All the rest of the "drug problem" exists simply to accomodate the selfish hunger-for-drugs of the "users".

All other efforts to "control" illegal drugs are futile if the "users" still ask for it-----end of discussion, as far as I am concerned.


No doubt about it being just the tip of the iceberg. It is incredible to see all the cash simply piled up like that though.

I think the biggest problem you'll find with eliminating the 'users' is that, for the most part, they are ordinary people. To generate that type of sales revenue requires a very large customer base. Simply throwing all the users in jail hasn't had much impact on illegal drug profits yet, other than maybe increasing them. 'Drinkers' were the problem when alcohol was illegal and they made the 'Capones' of that era very rich. I don't think most pot smokers think they are doing anything more wrong than the prohibition drinkers did.

Some will argue for jailing the users. Others will argue for education. Still others will say "to hell with it, let them kill themselves by taking whatever they want." I certainly don't have the solution to the problem but I think the system is broke and it needs fixing. Too many innocent people getting caught up as collateral damage due to the money aspect. Wealth creates power. That leads me to believe that taking the illicit profits out of the drug business is the best course of action. Start treating most drugs like tobacco and alcohol.

One of the very positive aspects of the internet is that stories like this can be spread. Silencing the reporter is much harder to do and there are many more reporters.