Americans Covering Mexico Drug Trade Face Assassination Threat

Washington Post ^ | July 14, 2007 | Manuel Roig-Franzia

[3AngelaD]

MEXICO CITY, July 13 -- The San Antonio Express-News, a 230,000-circulation daily, this week withdrew its U.S.-Mexico border reporter after learning of what appears to be an unprecedented plan to assassinate American journalists who frequently write about drug cartels in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

Sources have told several Texas newspapers that hit men from Los Zetas, a group of former Mexican military officers who operate as the Gulf cartel's assassins, may have been hired to cross into the United States and execute American reporters. Word of the threat shattered the widely held perception here that foreign journalists are somehow shielded from violent retribution...

"We are not immune," wrote Eloy Aguilar and Dolly Mascareñas in a statement sent Friday to fellow members of the Foreign Correspondents Association in Mexico. "We have a very confused and violent situation in Mexico, with the government fighting drug cartels on one side and suspected guerrilla groups on the other...

More than 30 journalists have been killed in Mexico in the past six years, but only one -- freelancer and activist Brad Will, who was shot to death during teacher protests last year in Oaxaca -- was American. Most of the killings are believed to be related to coverage of an ongoing war between drug cartels. Last year, drug gangs were suspected of firing automatic weapons and throwing a grenade into the newsroom of Nuevo Laredo's El Mañana newspaper, seriously injuring one reporter.

Express-News Editor Robert Rivard, a former Central America bureau chief for Newsweek, said in an interview Friday that steps have been taken to conceal the location of his former border correspondent, Mariano Castillo. Castillo wrote nearly 100 stories about cartels, crisscrossing the border from the newspaper's bureau in Laredo, Tex., for the past 4 1/2 years as drug violence escalated...

[3AngelaD]

Mexican criminals cross into our country and kill journalists with impunity? We have lost control of our border, and we are losing control of an entire section of our country. The U.S. government is doing nothing about it. Iraq's borders are enforced more strictly than ours are.

[freekitty]

What the heck is wrong with our government? They have gone crazy with their desire for the fruits of graft. I am sick of it.

It’s time to build the fence and deport the illegals. No excuses.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I bet something would happen real fast if they were crossing the border to assassinate Senate and Congress crooks.

[bcsco]

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[metmom]

Course, now that they’re going after liberals, it’ll be a different story.

The politicians won’t bite the hand that feeds them; something will be done now that it isn’t affecting only the unwashed masses.

[mallardx]

They’re just killing the journalists that lazy Americans aren’t willing to kill.

[randog]

Iraq's borders are enforced more strictly than ours are.

I dunno. Just watched a story on the news about weapons pouring into Iraq from Iran.

[Thombo2]

This sounds like a great subject for a documentary.Someone fearless and relentless in search of the truth aka Michael Moore?(sarc)

[stephenjohnbanker]

B U M P