American Journalists Targeted By Mexican Drug Cartels
July 14, 2007 11:29 a.m. EST
Laredo, TX (AHN)-The San Antonio Express-News this week withdrew its U.S.-Mexico border reporter and The Dallas Morning News is taking precautions after revelations of a plan to assassinate American journalists who frequently write about drug cartels in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
Sources have told several Texas newspapers that hit men from Los Zetas, a group of former Mexican military officers who operate as the Gulf cartel's assassins, may have been hired to execute American reporters, according to The Washington Post.
"We are not immune," wrote Eloy Aguilar and Dolly Mascare?as in a statement sent Friday to fellow members of the Foreign Correspondents Association in Mexico.
"We have a very confused and violent situation in Mexico, with the government fighting drug cartels on one side and suspected guerrilla groups on the other. . . . An incident involving a U.S. or other foreign journalist could be used by all groups to create more confusion," they wrote.
More than 30 journalists have been killed in Mexico in the past six years, making Mexico the second most dangerous country for journalists after Iraq in 2006, with nine dead and three missing, according to the Reporters Without Borders, a watchdog group.
Express-News Editor Robert Rivard said steps have been taken to conceal the location of his former border correspondent, Mariano Castillo, who wrote nearly 100 stories about drug cartels.
"We don't know that the report is credible, and we hope it isn't. But until we feel comfortable knowing that, we're going to err on the side of caution, and we pulled Mariano out of Laredo last night," he said, according to The Express-News.
He added, "I think that was a prudent move."
For now, the paper's border bureau in Laredo, Texas, about a 2 1/2-hour drive from San Antonio, sits vacant.
Moreover, newspapers in Mexico have stopped writing about drug-related crimes. Among them is Nuevo Laredo's El Mana?a newspaper, which stopped covering narcotics-related crimes after a Feb. 6, 2006, attack on its offices with grenades and assault rifles.
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