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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Calderon: We Do Not Know How to Explain the War on Drugs |
| 2010-08-04 |
| The Al Jiz article is about a talk given by Mexican president Felipe Calderon at a security conference where he laments journalists under attack. The real story and problem for Calderon is one of the biggest murder cases broken in northern Mexico in weeks was done through Youtube and a blog with the help of a criminal gang. by Chris Covert Even as the international press highlights Mexican president Felipe Calderon's lament about Mexican journalism under attack, he can't explain how his government was alerted to corruption in a Durango state prison uncovered by a combination of a snuff video released by the criminal gang Los Zetas and a tip on a mass murder placed in a blog only two months ago. Only three days ago two more journalists out of four were released unharmed by Los Zetas after being held until their respective news organizations released several videos purporting to show links between political leaders in Durango and drug cartels. Four journalists, three electronic and one print, were kidnapped eight days ago while they were finished covering news at the CERESO No. 2 where it was found that the prison director and three of her staff as well as several guards were using prisoners to commit more than 30 murders at Los Zetas operated facilities in Torreon, Coahuila. Rantburg initial reports on two of the massacres can be found here and here. What the Mexican national news media hasn't reported is that Los Zetas made local media in Torreon report the news of the videos as well as the content. The fact is that local media did as good a job as it was allowed with the information on hand from the government. But that was not enough for Los Zetas, which precipitated the abductions and the subsequent release of the victims unharmed. Apparently Los Zetas wanted the credit for the tips leading to the arrests of the CERESO prison staff last week. The blog Blog del Narco which was responsible for much of the information the government now knows about the Torreon massacres, was also instrumental in releasing information about the intergang gun battle which took place in Tubutama, Sonora July 2nd. In a post was shown photographs which demonstrated the gun battle was in fact a one sided ambush, a detail not released by the Mexican government at any level. Thanks to Blog del Narco, we now know the Sinaloa supported gang Command X ran into a Los Zetas buzzsaw in the mountains of northern Sonora. Mexican press are for the most part vigorous and diligent when reporting drug and crime news inasmuch as they rely on state attorneys general for at least their initial information. State governments will release information about confrontations between government forces and drug gangs, but not much in the way of details, and apparently the Mexican press is fine with the arrangement. The Durango CERESO story with the subsequent kidnapping may be changing all that. Now Los Zetas, as well as other criminal gangs, know they can get invaluable advantage in the information wars simply by pointing out where the corruption is, as they did with the snuff video. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 "No se, senor." |
| Posted by: mojo 2010-08-04 14:32 |