Translated by Amanda Coe
Javier Valdez was the reporter on drug trafficking, winner of international awards for his journalistic work, and also author of stories, such as, Huérfanos del narco [Drug Orphans], Miss Narco, De azoteas y olvidos [Of Attics and Oversights]. He devoted himself to inivestigation and came to understand the cultural significance that drugs and organized crime represented, outside of their relations to the police and political groups. That knowledge costed him his life. In 2011, when he received the International Press Freedom Award, he gave a speech stating:
“In Culiacán, Sinaloa, it is a danger to be alive, and to do journalism is to walk along an invisible line drawn by the bad guys, who are in drug trafficking and in the government, in a field strewn with explosives… One must protect oneself from everything and everyone… we are murderers of our own future.”President Enrique Peña was delivering a message to the press following the murder of Valdez, La Jornada correspondent and co-founder of the weekly newspaper Ríodoce, when the journalists' indignation became rage at impotence and impunity:
“No to silence, justice, justice. No more speeches.”Slightly bewildered, the president said he shared in the pain of the moment and offered
“to improve the structure and mechanisms for protection of human rights defenders and journalists, to establish a national protocol for operations against aggression, and to strengthen the Special Prosecutor's Office for Crimes Committed against Freedom of Expression.”How many times have we heard the same thing, feeling the emptiness of what has been said and officials’ lack of credibility, convinced that nothing will happen, just like nothing happened with the seven journalists killed this year. In Sinaloa, the same complaints were heard from the journalists, questioning Governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel:
“Enough discourse, we want you to tell us how you are going to investigate and punish the murderers of journalists, we need results, the state is going through the worst period of crime and violence.”The problem is that of a kidnapped and war-torn Mexico, where drug traffickers and organized crime groups, to which many leaders and politicians adhere and are accomplices, have the power and take part of the wealth of the country. They meet with the state governors and other authorities so that, after the commotion, everything returns to the same place, silence returns, and society remains in the dark, without truths.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Freedom of Expression, a subsidiary of the Attorney General’s Office, excused itself from its lack of answers because they say they are very limited, since this year’s budget was reduced by 50% compared to 2014, and also because they lack autonomy. Such is the bureaucracy between prosecutors and deputy attorney generals (SEIDO [Deputy Attorney General Specialized in Investigation of Organized Crime]) that they become impassable mazes.
The murder of journalist Miroslava Breach, in Chihuahua, is still unsolved. Governor Javier Corral said those responsible have been identified and would soon be arrested. Almost two months have gone by and there is no news. Nor anything said about the disappeared and the constant aggressions. If drugs and crime control is such that that government officials themselves are under siege, or that perhaps they owe them funds for their campaigns, why not look for alternatives such as the legalization of drugs and control of a market without killers.
On Thursday in Washington, US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly, recognized the need to work bilaterally on a common problem: drugs, causing so much destruction in both countries; where everyone does their part, the US has the consumption and its addictions, and Mexico its production, as well as its murders. But it requires intelligent officials, prepared men or women like that of Macron in France, But Mexico is very far from that.
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*Alejandra Rangel is a professor of communications.