SinEmbargo: Alejandro Paéz Varela*
Translated by Melanie Orr
Translated by Melanie Orr
The soldiers of the Presidential Guard responded by taking pictures of the rebels and, a day later, by searching the bags and trousers belonging to the reporters who cover the events. Testimonies of the latter have been published on different media.
I don’t think that the president was upset by the murder of Javier Valdez [reporter murdered in Coahuila, Sinaloa, on May 15]. He has never shown any interest in the murders of reporters during his time in office. Not even a tweet. We are less than socks to him: he’s tweeted about his socks [he wore socks that didn't match while running a race] but has made barely one comment about journalists in five years. Or two, although I’m unsure. Nothing meaningful, anyway.
During the event at Los Pinos, Peña Nieto asked for a minute’s silence. More than one of us thought that, well, we don’t need a minute more of silence, as we’ve already endured five years of it. A silence that allows for impunity. Impunity that enables evil, within the government or within organized crime, to continue to murder journalists.
I got the feeling that no-one wanted to leave. When the press conference was over, some of us stayed to talk in front of the fence aroung the Secretariat of Government Relations. Those of us who carried candles went to place them at the doors of the Secretariat, in an improvised altar for Javier, for Miroslava Breach [murdered in Chihuahua in March] and for all the colleagues who have fallen over these five years.
“It’s as if the next one to die is walking among us,” a colleague said to me.Yes, with no exaggeration.
...Javier Valdez didn’t have options to be saved. They killed him.
And the president is the problem.
***
His term in office will come to an end with the Mexican federal government having learned nothing. Not a thing.
They have been wrong since the early days and this is how their time will end: in error.
They have been wrong since the early days and this is how their time will end: in error.
It seems to me that there have been no moments of reflection. They have been obsessed with five subjects, among them sweeping the dirt under the carpet and trying to keep a hold on the Mexican State. The entire cabinet, every single person, has gone out to campaign. No-one stayed to deal with the imponderables; to offer options of salvation.
However, they didn’t self-criticize either. In fact, self-criticism is a word that has remained in Toluca for many years. [Toluca is the capital of the State of Mexico, where Peña Nieto was governor, 2005-2011, and made a great show of promising accountability.]
The Mexican president maintains a third class bureaucracy in FEADLE [The Special Prosecutor for Crimes Committed Against Freedom of Expression] the prosecutor that should have guaranteed that the killers of the first journalists murdered during his term went to prison. Journalists paid the price for Ricardo Nájera [head of FEADLE] and for the disinterest that led to 98.7% of all cases going unpunished, according to data from Article 19. And now it is he who is the problem.
So, there is not even any remorse. Nor self-criticism, nor reflection. Perhaps the federal government thought that these billions of pesos that they had handed over [to pay for "official publicity"] - according to the official data - to members of the media would guarantee that there would be no cries [for justice], that nobody would notice that they were killing journalists at a rapidly growing rate. The billions that were shared out didn’t stop the turmoil: the president’s image hit rock bottom, and on-the-ground journalists die due to the indifference.
However, they didn’t self-criticize either. In fact, self-criticism is a word that has remained in Toluca for many years. [Toluca is the capital of the State of Mexico, where Peña Nieto was governor, 2005-2011, and made a great show of promising accountability.]
The Mexican president maintains a third class bureaucracy in FEADLE [The Special Prosecutor for Crimes Committed Against Freedom of Expression] the prosecutor that should have guaranteed that the killers of the first journalists murdered during his term went to prison. Journalists paid the price for Ricardo Nájera [head of FEADLE] and for the disinterest that led to 98.7% of all cases going unpunished, according to data from Article 19. And now it is he who is the problem.
So, there is not even any remorse. Nor self-criticism, nor reflection. Perhaps the federal government thought that these billions of pesos that they had handed over [to pay for "official publicity"] - according to the official data - to members of the media would guarantee that there would be no cries [for justice], that nobody would notice that they were killing journalists at a rapidly growing rate. The billions that were shared out didn’t stop the turmoil: the president’s image hit rock bottom, and on-the-ground journalists die due to the indifference.
Clearly, the president with the disgruntled expression will leave without having learned anything. Not a single thing. His image has plummeted and on-the-ground journalists will never forgive him for this long dark night. And then, in the sunset of his administration, when we know who the next president will be [in July 2018], the press that accompanied the entirety of Peña Nieto’s time in office and even the columnists who defended him will begin to strike out at him, and at the federal government. They will join in a merciless chorus, as heartless as the negligence has been.
...No, they have learned nothing:. Those to whom he gave billions during his time in office will turn their backs, as he did with Humberto Moreira, Javier Duarte, César Duarte, etc. As they did with many more in the past. As the government does [at the end of] every administration.
The press supportive of the goverment has received a big slice of the pie year after year, and the president has not fulfilled another of his promises: making media relations more transparent. Last November’s Fundar [Center for Research and Analysis] report stated that:
“It’s been four years since Enrique Peña Nieto promised to create a citizens’ commission that supervises and makes the official publicity contracts transparent at all levels of government [federal, state and municipal]. To this day, this promise has not materialized. And the use of government advertising continues to be governed by the same bad practices: very little information and no accountability for the use of millions in public funds that have been assigned without rules.”Things remain the same. It’s a shame that money has been thrown in the trash (money belonging to all of us, of course). The president couldn’t maintain his popularity levels, nor could he hide the truth that, while he pays billions to the media owners (who now are joining the chorus to “condemn” the attacks on the press), on-the-ground reporters are being killed.
Yes, Enrique Peña Nieto’s government has been, in all ways, a dark night. A dark night for the people and a dark night for journalists, too.
Light is coming. It will come when it may.
For a long time, I’ve listened to colleagues, somewhere between worried and fed up, saying:
"It’s time for the government to go now. It’s time for this administration to end once and for all and to go where they want, with the millions that they made and with their bloody fiesta of impunity."It’s time for them to go with their Mexico in their bags and leave us with this, the grand Mexico, which does not belong to them and which is more worth the effort.
It’s time for them to go, truly, It’s time for them to go, now. Spanish original
*Alejandro Páez Varela is a journalist and novelist. He is the author of the novels: Heart of Kalashnikov (Alfaguara 2014, Planet 2008), Music for Dogs (Alfaguara 2013) and The Kingdom of the Flies (Alfaguara 2012), and collections of short stories and essays: Batteries Not Included (Cal y Arena 2009 ) and Parachutes That Don't Open (2007). He wrote President In Waiting (Planeta 2011) and is a co-author of other journalistic books such as The War for Juarez (Planeta, 2008), The Aspirants 2006 (Planeta 2005) The Aspirants 2012 (Planeta 2011), The Lords of Mexico (2007), The Untouchables (2008). He was deputy editor of El Universal and of the magazine, Day Seven. and an editor at Reforma and El Economista. He is currently director of content of SinEmbargo.mx @paezvarela