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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Gunmen Attack TV Offices in Messico |
| 2009-01-09 |
| When news director Francisco Cobo heard the explosion outside his television studio, as his two on-air anchors were presenting the evening news, he thought it might be a story. Then, Cobo said, he realized: We are the story. The Televisa network news offices in the northern city of Monterrey were attacked Tuesday night in a commando-style raid by hooded gunmen who fired on the front doors of the building and then lobbed a hand grenade into the parking lot near a reporter and her cameraman. No one was hurt in the attack, which occurred at 8:40 p.m. in the prosperous manufacturing metropolis, which many executives consider one of the safer cities in Mexico. The assailants drove a red Pontiac with Texas plates. They left a threatening message, a now-common tactic used by the heavily armed enforcers for drug-trafficking cartels and organized crime. The message read: "Stop reporting only about us, also report about the narco-officials. This is a warning." The car, thought to be stolen, was later found abandoned with a .40-caliber handgun and a ski mask inside. "We've had death threats before, by phone," Cobo said. "But we haven't had any threats for several months. And we haven't aired any big news about the narcos, just some smaller stories about some arrests." As the station was under attack, the two news anchors asked the police for help while on the air. This is the latest in a series of attacks on journalists in Mexico, where drug cartels have been battling one another and the police in a vicious struggle for control of billion-dollar smuggling routes to the U.S. drug market. "It is easy and cheap to commit such attacks," said DarÃo RamÃrez, a director of Article 19, an organization based in Mexico that defends freedom of expression and reports that 28 journalists have been killed and eight have disappeared in the country since 2000. "What we are saying is that the government, in its silence, has demonstrated a complete lack of responsibility." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 The assailants drove a red Pontiac with Texas plates Smokey and the Banditos??? |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2009-01-09 15:38 |
| #1 They didn't attack about the lousy shows? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2009-01-09 02:43 |