Lindsey Hilsum blogs on why it is hard for journalists to report on the increasingly violent drug war in Mexico
Like any reporter interested in the drug wars, I check out the Mexican newspapers online every morning. But these days, I go to another source which has more details, and carries video and pictures I can’t find anywhere else: el blogdelnarco. I follow him on twitter too, because he’s often first with the news.
The mystery blogger told Associated Press that he is a student of computer security from the north of Mexico. He never reveals his identity. Drug criminals and police appear to send information to his site, which gets three million hits a week. He posts videos showing cartel members being interrogated by their rivals, or by paramilitaries. In one, a supposed member of the Gulf Cartel claims that the Governor of Durango is providing them with weapons.
Others show beheadings – the blogsite is used to issue threats. Yet no-one seems to want it closed down, because everyone affected – the authorities, the cartels, and the public – need the information.
The narcoblogger has stepped into the breach left by Mexican journalists, who dare not report as they used to do. Thirty journalists have been killed in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon started his war on the drug cartels in 2006, making Mexico the most deadly country in Latin America for the media. Most are victims of the drug cartels, not caught in crossfire but targeted for reporting what is going on.
Last month, four reporters from the central Mexican state of Durango were kidnapped after reporting a prison riot, which followed the revelation that the prison governor was allowing inmates to go out at night and commit murders. The journalists were freed only after their TV station agreed to broadcast a video, produced by one of the drug cartels, which showed corrupt policemen who were apparently working for a rival cartel.
Today, attention has turned to Tamaulipas state where police have found 72 unburied bodies dumped on a ranch. They are presumably victims of the ever more vicious drug war, which in this part of Mexico pits Los Zetas against the Gulf Cartel. In recent weeks, the industrial city of Monterrey, Mexico’s wealthiest, has been almost brought to a standstill by cartel road blocks, kidnaps and gunbattles, following the murder of a local mayor. Police chiefs, political candidates and senior state officials are frequently targeted for assassination. The drug gangs are trying to seize the Mexican state, and closing down the media is just one part of their plan.