Pubdate: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2010 The Dallas Morning News, Inc. Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/lettertoed.cgi Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 DRUG TERROR SILENCES MEXICAN MEDIA Northern Mexico continues its descent into chaos. If any doubt remains about which side is winning the country's drug war, go ask a Mexican journalist in Nuevo Laredo to explain it. Can't find one? That's probably because they're hiding and refuse to receive visitors at their newspaper and television offices. Cartel informants are interspersed among their staffs, so nobody dares speak openly about what they know. Another possibility is to pick up a newspaper and read all the articles about rampant drug violence in Nuevo Laredo. Can't find those articles? That's because publishers have been terrorized into self-censorship by drug gangs and no longer are willing to risk reprisal by publishing stories that shine a negative light on the thugs. "We are under their complete control," a veteran reporter told The Washington Post. Last month, four Nuevo Laredo journalists were abducted while covering protests outside a prison whose guards had armed prisoners and let them out at night to conduct attacks against rival drug groups. The journalists' captors demanded that television networks broadcast video statements by men who, under apparent duress, said they worked for the Zetas drug gang, one of several vying for control of lucrative smuggling routes into the United States. The networks complied, marking a new milestone in which the drug terrorists had not merely silenced the media but actually dictated the news they report. "Mexican authorities cannot allow criminal groups to control the flow of information. Citizens' right to free expression and the stability of Mexican democracy are both at stake," says Carlos Lauria, of the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. That's the warning this newspaper sounded long ago as Mexico's violence took a sharp departure from old Mafia-style drug hits and instead began resembling the kinds of beheadings, torture, kidnappings and other terrorist tactics used by al-Qaeda. It's no coincidence that this is happening just on the opposite side of the border from where Interstate 35 begins its path from Laredo through San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and other major cities. American drug consumers are funding this rampage of death, which has cost 25,000 Mexicans their lives since 2006. Make no mistake: This is terrorism, and the groups behind these actions have directly threatened American lives and U.S. national security. Under U.S. law, they should be placed on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist groups, which would seriously raise the ante for anyone conspiring with them to smuggle money and weapons southward or drugs northward across the border. This country can no longer ignore our role in the terror spreading across Mexico. American illicit drug users supply the funding, while the rest of us act like it's not our problem. Meanwhile, northern Mexico's fragile free press slowly fades into extinction. [sidebar] July marked one of the most violent months yet for Mexican journalists covering the drug war. Major incidents included: - - Kidnapping and subsequent release of four journalists outside Nuevo Laredo - - Kidnapping of newspaper editor in Zacatecas - - Torture and killing of a radio journalist in Montemorelos, Nuevo Leon - - Shooting death of newspaper reporter in Chihuahua - - Grenade attack on Televisa bureau in Nuevo Laredo - - Beheading threat that forced Ciudad Juarez television reporter to seek refuge in El Paso SOURCES: Reporters Without Borders and Committee to Protect Journalists - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D