“The freedom to write doesn’t exist in Mexico”

The quote is from Emilio Gutierrez Soto, formerly a Chihuahua reporter who was released after being held for seven months by the  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “service” after he fled death threats following his reports on military abuses connected with the so-called “war on drugs” in his state.  Guiterrez crossed into Texas with his son, asked for political asylum and was locked up longer than some drug dealers are.

Or that’s the story as reported by the Los Angles Times.  I’m not familiar with the background on this in incident, and the Times story says Guiterrez was working for El Diario Noroeste.  I don’t know a paper by that name.  El Diario is a chain of several newspapers, and they seem to be referrring to the Juarez paper, although they could mean the Cuilican based Noroeste.  Writing for either of those papers on the military could be hazardous to one’s health … and freedom.

I don’t know which is more bothersome … that a reporter is imprisoned for seeking political asylum, or that he felt the need to flee because of the military response to the “drug war.”  ICE abuses should be better covered in the United States, but the major papers seem to be indifferent to that, and what coverage those abuses receive is spotty at best, or tends to be dismissed.

The incident that caused problems for Gutierrez, at least the one the Times highlighted, was a “2005 story for El Diario del Noroeste [which] claimed that drunken soldiers raided a hotel in northern Chihuahua state.”  This was followed by military-organized raids on the reporter’s own home, allegedly to search for weapons and/or narcotics.  And death threats.

Incidents where soldiers have invaded the wrong houses, or looted private businesses,  have been reported here locally.  Soldiers are not policemen, and a military operation requires a different mind-set than a police investigation.  A military is designed to take total control of a situation, and anything or anyone who interferes with the goal is the “enemy” and has to be eliminated or neutralized.

And an army is a bureaucracy, and no bureaucracy graciously deals with criticism.  Especially when an otherwise respected institution like the Army is tasked with jobs traditionally done begrudgingly by underpaid, otherwise unemployable locals.  Granted, the police in this country need better training, and we need better policemen, but simply throwing the army — mostly teenagers with guns — at the problem is likely to create a new set of problems.

Reporters are going to investigate,  and there are going to be incidents that need investigation.  And, one way or another, reporters are going to report.  I know reporters who have been murdered, and I don’t just write this off Guiterrez’ experience as an anomaly.  Writers have always been highly respected in Mexico, and there is a long tradition of free expression… outside the news.

The  highly unpopular, non-majority administration (when you come down to it, Calderon only received about 20 percent of the vote in the last election, counting those who took the Zapatistas’ advise and refused to vote)  seems to have glommed on to the “War on Drug (Dealers)” as a way of creating legitimacy.  But,  crude attempts at censorship are not going to work.  Writers will figure out some way of getting out the news:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --