Mexico: FAIL thread

[Cain]

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/30/world/la-fg-mexico-mayor-20100831

Reporting from Mexico City — For the second time in two weeks, the mayor of a Mexican city has been slain by purported drug traffickers, authorities say.

Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, the mayor of Hidalgo in the violent border state of Tamaulipas, was shot to death Sunday. His young daughter was wounded in the attack.

Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, is the same state where a drug gang is suspected in the massacre last week of 72 migrants and where the battle between rival cartels has left a bloody trail of death, cowed authorities and terrified citizens.

President Felipe Calderón condemned the killing of Leal Garcia, who was ambushed as he drove with his daughter on the outskirts of Hidalgo.

"This cowardly crime and the reprehensible violent acts that occurred recently in this state strengthen the commitment of the Mexican government to continue fighting the criminal gangs that seek to intimidate the families of Tamaulipas," Calderon said in a statement released by his office.

The motive for the mayor's slaying was not immediately clear. Traffickers often kill local authorities who refuse to cooperate or whom they perceive as being sympathetic to rival gangs.

Tamaulipas and the neighboring state of Nuevo León have recently become a battleground between the powerful Gulf Cartel and its onetime ally, the especially vicious Zetas paramilitary faction.

The motivation seems pretty clear to me. 

[Cain]

And while I'm here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/27/mexico-massacre-investigator-migrants

The body of an official investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants killed in a ranch in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas was found today dumped beside a nearby road alongside another unidentified victim, according to local media.

Earlier, two cars exploded outside the studios of the national TV network Televisa in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria. There were no casualties, but the blasts added to a growing sense of fear in the aftermath of the worst single act of violence in the country's raging drug wars.

Meanwhile, investigators under armed guard continued the process of identifying the victims, with 20 named by midday on Friday, local officials said.

[The Johnny]

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/30/world/la-fg-mexico-mayor-20100831

Reporting from Mexico City — For the second time in two weeks, the mayor of a Mexican city has been slain by purported drug traffickers, authorities say.

Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, the mayor of Hidalgo in the violent border state of Tamaulipas, was shot to death Sunday. His young daughter was wounded in the attack.

Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, is the same state where a drug gang is suspected in the massacre last week of 72 migrants and where the battle between rival cartels has left a bloody trail of death, cowed authorities and terrified citizens.

President Felipe Calderón condemned the killing of Leal Garcia, who was ambushed as he drove with his daughter on the outskirts of Hidalgo.

"This cowardly crime and the reprehensible violent acts that occurred recently in this state strengthen the commitment of the Mexican government to continue fighting the criminal gangs that seek to intimidate the families of Tamaulipas," Calderon said in a statement released by his office.

The motive for the mayor's slaying was not immediately clear. Traffickers often kill local authorities who refuse to cooperate or whom they perceive as being sympathetic to rival gangs.

Tamaulipas and the neighboring state of Nuevo León have recently become a battleground between the powerful Gulf Cartel and its onetime ally, the especially vicious Zetas paramilitary faction.

The motivation seems pretty clear to me. 

Thats the 10th governor within 4 months.

[Jenne]

...you mean "mayor"?

[The Johnny]

Gobernador estatal = Governor

Gobernador municipal = Mayor

So, yes. 

or 

[Jenne]

Oh, I figured it was a translation error on some level, just wasn't sure whose...

[Cain]

I need a decent source on the cartel/political links that are almost certainly going on in Mexico.  I know the PRI almost ran the entire country at one point, rather like the Communist Party in the Soviet Union or the Liberal Party in Japan, and in the 80s they started to lose some of that overwhelming dominance.  That could have been due to an influx of cartel money to the opposition, or they may have turned to the cartels and their money (and muscle) to try and undermine the opposition.  Or something else entirely.

There have to be links, people with as much power and influence as the cartel leaders do not just stay out of of politics. and I know some members of the PRI were implicated in corruption involving the cartels in the mid-90s, but beyond that, finding out anything is almost impossible.

[The Johnny]

Im not sure its possible - i think theres even an accusation from multiple civil organizations to the UN in respect of the lack of protection for journalists and the harrasment from police. A very renowned and famous journalist named Lydia Cacho runs a shelter for abused spouses, and the wife of an officer took asilum in there, and they were one step from invading it. Imagine the treatment that any mortal journalist can and will receive.

The best method i would say to approach it is deduction from facts derived from multiple sources. Much of the stuff i post here is from "El Universal" which is a right wing newspaper, then theres "Reforma" which is also right wing, "La Jornada" is run by the UNAM (national autonomous university of mexico) which has a leftist bias and theres another important one which i cant recall the name right now...

What im getting at is: no group has enough power to control all the newspapers at the same time, so if two newspapers say that there were 20 dead at any given confrontation while a third paper says it was 3 dead, most likely is that there were 20 dead. And while some newspapers will make omission about the "escape from prison" of important traffickers, chances are, the rest of the others wont make that omission. Of course theres not gonna be any article stating what is their perception of the behind the scenes actions, but based on the previous method you can get a pretty good idea.

[The Johnny]

Theres also a couple of best sellers that analyze this issue you speak of, but im sure that the grain of salt needed for such information would be cross reference digging of articles.

Ill come up with a list of newspapers and said kinds of books.

Cain, do you know spanish? I dont think there's english versions.

[Cain]

That's pretty much the approach I have to the UK press: the Times is a Murdoch-owned enterprise, but even Murdoch can sometimes be right about his opposition (plus the Times has excellent geopolitical reporting, if you can read between the lines - they were some of the only people to take Sibel Edmonds seriously, which is more than can be said of the US press), the Guardian watches Murdoch, the Telegraph watches the Guardian and the Indepdent....well, they're only half-decent, but I know the journalists to trust there, since my best friend's brother works there and I have an inside scoop on some of their biases.

The only problem is the blind cultural assumptions they all buy into...but I'm used to seeing past them by now, so I can probably do the same for the Mexican press, if not actually perform slightly better, coming at it as an outsider.

I can speak Spanish....I'm by no means fluent anymore, but I used to be pretty good.  This will be good practice, at least, since I've been meaning to get back into it.  I'll look up those three papers and see what I find.  Cheers!

[The Johnny]

Jorge Fernández Menéndez is a journalist, and in 2004 was editor and columnist for the daily newspaper Milenio) en Monterrey, N.L.,(México) in A.M., daily newspaper in Guanajuato, Gto.,(México) and also Excelsior, daily newspaper in México City. Jorge Fernández Menéndez, a specialist in subversive movements has written the books: Asesinato de un cardenal: ganancia de pescadores; El otro poder: Las redes del narcotráfico, la política y violencia in México City; De los maras a los zetas: Los secretos del narcotráfico de Colombia a Chicago; Nadie supo nada: La verdadera historia del asesinato de Eugenio Garza Sada; Calderón presidente: La lucha por el poder.

Jorge Fernández Menéndez has an important program in Imagen radio station located in 90.5 F.M. in México City.

Very ironic, an article about him in english, but none in spanish, anyhow, some of his bibliography related to narco (i cant say if its a good read or not, but he seems informed on the subject):

"El otro poder: las redes del narcotrafico, la politica y la violencia en Mexico" (2004)

"De los Maras a los Zetas: los secretos del narcotrafico, de Colombia a Chigago" (2007)

"Las FARC en Mexico: de la politica al narcotrafico" (2008)

I have a skull-smasher size best-seller type book about narco, but i cant remember the author or title, but its in another city, ill tell you the specs by next week.

[The Johnny]

TRANSLATION OF OVERVIEW ARTICLE
------------------------------------------

MARIA IDALIA LOPEZ AND DARIO FRITZ
"NOTHING IS AT IT SEEMS, THE INVESTIGATION ON DRUG TRAFFICKING IN MEXICO"
by: María Idalia Gómez y Darío Fritz
27 – January – 2006
Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas
We will begin this conversation about what it was to do "Con la Muerte en el Bolsillo", the book about drug trafficking that we published several months ago. How to make a book that wasnt boring, that would interest the common and vulgar public, that it would be informatively solid and well written. And that we wouldnt put our lives at stake while at it.
The making of this book was cross referencing information. That which gave us testimony, with the judicial reports and the collegues that had published. It was corroborating to come to a truth, which obviously is not the absolute truth.Working the subject of drug trafficking in Mexico has become a cyclopean task for the press. Because of reasons from the reporters and for others.
There are no trustworthy or accurate sources. The confusion is permanent: the non-stop crimes don't allow to distinguish groups or reasons, the corpses pile up day by day in the pages and they don't allow to see the forest.The ignorance in many cases from the authority itself about what is happening in the streets makes it even more complex to understand.

The reporter must have to deal with the vague official information, biased and in more than one case, hidden. The reporter must also deal with the lack of interest from the media and the lack of support for their investigation work. This makes for the coverage of information about trafficking to become a task over the capability of reporters.
The coverage of trafficking has become a mere enumeration of corpses and executions. A numeration of death. Trafficking today is the red note – police section. It is true that with this you can excite people, agitate them, creates opinions and calls for attention. But I think that can be our worst enemy. We are floating at the surface, or they don't allow us to go deeper and we don't realize it.

An important problem to understand this orphanage in Mexico is the lack of existence of investigation teams in newspapers or support from corporations so that reporters can dedicate themselves exclusively to it.
It must also be referenced that the problem of trafficking does not form part of the agenda of medium term work of periodistic enterprises, excepting the zones of higher influence and weight in organized crime.
In the newspapers of the Federal District, that have a greater impact than those on the states, trafficking is approached from the optic of daily information, but it is not done, in a greater scope, works looking into the depths of the thematic.
The information that gets to the readers is the mask of the problem: theres dozens of dead, totally out of context one from another. Seizure of cargo, arrests and gunpowder. No more. Nevertheless, there is no information about the subjects that would explain and tie together what is and who is in trafficking.

We can enumerate some of the subjects that would throw some light: drug consumption, the moneys that are laundered in real estate or bank operations, the judicial and political relations, the lack of social interest in testifying/denouncing, who are the victims of trafficking – Kapuchinsky wrote that covering the war was essentially for him, describing the situation of children, women and elderly-.
Periodism must investigate the relations with the business of soccer, with priests that accept alms, the losses of a city from exodus of investment and population or the corruption of customs, for example.
The task is complex. It is not easy. Approaching trafficking from within Mexico is practically imposible. Whom enters the line of fire, in zones like this city or other where different groups operate, its like detecting a tumor in metastasis. Life has its hours counted.
Coverage of guerrilla conflict and the wars seems like a subject for greenhorns if its compared to trafficking. Whom wishes to cover these subjects, will have access sooner or later the point of view of an armed group or the other side of armies in combat. But a reporter cannot try to approach a trafficker for an interview in his ranch, house, airplane, corporation or whore-house.
To make it more graphical. To know a trafficker from within is to pretend that someone would receive them with open arms the winds of a hurricane in the middle of New Orleans. Without pretending to be a hero and even if we were the most professional ones, the minimal common sense that forms part of our olfaction to detect information, tells us that there is no way to get there.

An interview in prison is the most we can aspire for. This takes us to the law of the funnel: it exists, for better or worse, only one version, the official. We can doubt it, distrust it with persistence, but it will be difficult that if several deaths in one day be attributed to a gunman or a group, that we can refute them. Even though we know that for those cases there's counter-intelligence operations of groups to deviate the direction of a police investigation. Nothing is at it seems, says the jargon of intelligence agents. That's the reason one has to search, scratch, knock on stones, until we get close to truth.

Lets remember. The jailhouse of La Palma seemed the most peaceful of the world until mid 2004. In an opportunity, one of the sources we worked with for ou book, told us that the PFP had a huge problem in prison. That Osiel Cardenas made business with his cell phones, that he had made business with Benjamin Arellano and almost had him under his command. The problem was that in the Cisen, the PGR and the army knew it, but couldn't get involved because of inner struggles within the Fox cabinet. The heads of these organisms didn't want to know either way.
In very short time, everything went wrong, crime began in the jailhouse and even Osiel Cardenas gave an interview to a television chain from his cell phone, the state had to intervene and outside began the war. Nothing was as it seemed. La Palma wasn't peaceful, nor the cartels were paralyzed.
Theres a dictatorship of information, even do it posits itself as democratic. We all know how little we can know, simply because of the origin of information is one: an authority, so be it federal, state or municipal. And the criminal organizations respond only to their interests.
A Colombian reporter said some years ago in a simosium about press and traffick in Buenos Aires, that with trafficking one always has to deal with the illegal sources of information. And it is true. No one gives name, the intelligence reports barely can be quoted – we depend on the benefactor informant that approves it- some tips or data for further investigation are given, and rarely lead anywhere, they try to manipulate us with partial information.

Perhaps one of the best ways to know what to do, how to learn how to unmingled trafficking and its tentacles, is to see how they see us. What does a trafficker think of reporters, do we serve any purpose for them, do they fear us, do they respect us even, they laugh at us, they don't care.
We interviewed one of them whom was detained some time ago and that the information that he declared allowed authorities to arrest and subjugate to trial to several drug lords. This anonymous character, tells us several truths, some like the kidney punch of the best times of Julio Cesar Chavez. Really fatal.

This was four years ago. Cartels only keep growing in size and influence. Now you would have to delve into innumerable international connections. Its like motherfukkin McDonalds 

[The Johnny]

http://noticias.prodigy.msn.com/internacional/articulo-bbc.aspx?cp-documentid=26789394

Mexico turns its back to culture, says poll

Closet o half of mexicans have never stepped in a library or visited an arquelogical site, points oout the study, that reveals a lack of interest for cultural activity.

Mexicans are rarely interested in culture. At least that's what is suggested by an official poll, according to which half of those consulted have never stepped in a library, while 86% have never assisted a plastic arts/visual exposition.
In contrast, 90% of the polled recognized that they daily watch television.

The data reveals historical deficiencies in education and culture in Mexicans, as well as the lack of interest of authorities to remedy the problem, warns poet Hugo Gutierrez Vega.

"It shows the failure of the education system which is one of the worst in the world according to statistics" says in conversation with BBC World.
The poll is named "Encuesta Nacional de Habitos, Practicas y Consumo Culturales" and was sponsored by the government's Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (CONACULTA).

It will help, says the presidentess of the Council, Consuelo Saizar, to evaluate and oriéntate the public politics in matter of culture.
"So we know in what to invest the money of the Mexicans" said to local media.

It's a necessary thing, agree specialists. According to the poll, more than 41 millons of Mexicans have little to no interest in culture.
The poll about cultural habits was applied personally to 32,000 people over the age of 13 in all of the country. It is the most extensive in this kind which has been applied in Mexico, says Conaculta.

The study engaged the interest on film, dance, music, theater, arqueological zones, museums, visual arts, libraries, bookstores and lecture, as well as the visits to cultural centres, historical monuments and exposition to mass media.

The result is a detailed map of the musical preferences and cultural level of Mexicans.
For example, the third part of the polled affirmed to have assisted in the last year to a live musical concert, but 2% only went to a opera.
48% of whom went to musical events preffered banda/grupero, in which frequently theres performance of narcocorridos.

Also, 79% of Mexicans have not bought a book iin the last year, and of these, the majority said they aren't interested in reading. More than half of the polled recognized never have been inside a bookstore.
Whom was interested in books, preferred the subjects of personal growth and soaps.

In Mexico there are 176 arqueological sites open to the public. But 53% of Mexicans have never visited one of them, and close to half don't know a museum.
The poll also reveals that 75% of polled goes to the movies, but to see action or kids movies. In the moment in which the poll was made, the most seen movie was Toy Story 3.

[Epimetheus]

That's interesting.
I wonder what the similar stats are for USA.
Is that a very visible trend in Mexican society (Have you seen it yourself)? Or are you trusting the poll?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Vega is right; those statistics are really more reflective of endemic poverty and lack of education than of a lack of interest in culture. "Culture" as a museum is an interest only to those with the luxury of free time; the impoverished and uneducated don't tour culture, they live it.