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Drug stories dangerous for reporters in Mexico

HERMOSILLO, SONORA – The young reporter grew up wanting to be a boxer, but he took on another fight instead - one against Mexico's drug cartels that some believe cost him his life. Alfredo Jiménez Mota, 25, disappeared April 2 while investigating government corruption and drug-trafficking cases with links to Arizona for the Hermosillo, Sonora, newspaper El Imparcial. Facing political pressure to solve the case, last week the Mexican federal government took over the investigation into his disappearance. State investigators had the case until then, and there's a growing concern his ultimate fate will never be known. Jiménez Mota's disappearance came at a tense time when drug gang violence is growing and assaults on Mexico's bravest reporters are on the rise. Jiménez Mota's family has said it is encouraged by the involvement of Mexico's federal police and by statements from Mexico's President Vicente Fox equating attacks on journalists to assaults on public figures such as judges or elected officials. But the federal investigation may be nothing more than posturing before Mexico's presidential elections, said Benoit Hervieu of Reporters Without Borders, an international organization that has condemned the killing of journalists. Attacks on other reporters

The son of a railroad worker, Jiménez Mota was raised a devout Catholic and grew up wanting to be a boxer. At 21, he became a reporter, quickly gaining a reputation as an investigative journalist specializing in drug-trafficking and government corruption cases in Sinaloa, the home of Mexico's most powerful drug lords. His disappearance was followed by attacks on two other Mexican reporters. In each case, the reporters were investigating trafficking or corruption. In Tamaulipas, a reporter was shot nine times as she left work. In Veracruz, gunmen killed a publisher accompanied by his children, the shooter walking up to deliver the tiro de gracia to the head. As with Jiménez Mota, the cases are under federal investigation, but the assailants remain unidentified. "There's been a perfect record of impunity. There's not been a good history here," said Carlos Lauria, Americas program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization outspoken in its demands for thorough investigations into reporter killings. Many adversaries

In his six months at El Imparcial, Jiménez Mota developed many adversaries. Before he disappeared, he was following the case of a Sonoyta, Sonora, drug-trafficking organization, Los Numeros. He'd also begun investigating Ramon Robles Cota, the Sonoyta police chief arrested last month in the United States for allegedly trying to bribe a U.S. agent. He'd written about an alliance that had developed between Los Numeros and Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman Loéra. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration also believes Los Numeros is linked to Guzman Loéra, said spokeswoman Ramona Sanchez. In addition to drug traffickers, Jiménez Mota had written about corruption inside the Sonoyta police department. And he'd raised questions about similar problems in the Hermosillo police department, said Hervieu, of Reporters Without Borders. The Sonora Attorney General's Office, which conducted the initial investigation into the reporter's disappearance, has not responded to several requests for information about the cases. The day he vanished

Jiménez Mota's family, friends and colleagues give this account of the day he vanished: At about 4 p.m., the reporter went to lunch at an Hermosillo restaurant, Los Grillos. The owner spotted two men in a Volkswagen Bug outside the restaurant taking photos of Jiménez Mota and warned him. Later, Jiménez Mota called a co-worker to postpone a dinner, saying he had to meet a "nervous source." By the following Tuesday, Jiménez Mota still had not returned. His father and editors from El Imparcial filed a missing person report with the Sonora Attorney General's Office. Police later found the reporter's cellphone, police scanner, newspaper, radio and all his clothes in his apartment. He lived alone. As the investigation has progressed, it's become evident that there were earlier threats. Two months before he turned up missing, Jiménez Mota was walking home from work when he spotted two or three men standing outside his home. The reporter quickly walked away and headed to the police department for help. He was told by police that he was just "being hysterical," said his father Alfredo Jiménez Martinez. "They told him those things don't happen in Hermosillo," he said. Until that incident, the reporter had sheltered his family from his work. "He never told us what he was working on," he said. "He would even lie to people, telling them he was from Sinaloa to prevent them knowing where we live. "All I can do now is continue to pray to the Virgen de Guadalupe that my son returns home safe." 34 reporters killed since '93

At the moment, that seems unlikely. Since 1993, 34 Mexican reporters have been killed, according to the Inter-American Press Association. Mexico has yet to solve even one case, said Jesús Blancornelas, publisher of the Tijuana weekly, Zeta.

Blancornelas uses his newspaper to crusade against drug cartels in the Baja California city. In retaliation, he was attacked in 1997 and nearly died from his injuries. The shooters killed his bodyguard. Last June, one of his editors, Francisco Ortiz Franco, was killed, shot four times in front of his children. Since then, the silencing of journalists in Mexico has accelerated. The Inter-American Press Association says four reporters were killed in eight attacks in 2004. This year, two have been killed and one disappeared in three incidents last month. The first was Dolores Guadalupe Garcia Escamilla in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. She was shot nine times in the arms and legs by gunmen lying in wait for her outside her radio station. She clung to life for 12 days before dying. Following that shooting, publisher Raul Gibb Guerrero of La Opinion newspaper in Veracruz was shot three times in the head. Meanwhile, a northern Mexico drug war has killed more than 250 people this year. The killings threaten to destabilize Mexico's democracy, have prompted travel warnings from the U.S. State Department and have intimidated reporters in Mexico from covering the drug cartels, experts say. Without a strong response from the federal government, the assaults on reporters will eventually quell serious investigations into the drug cartels, Blancornelas said. "We're going to enter a time when reporters simply won't engage in those investigations," he said. The cautious reporting has already begun. At El Imparcial, reporters no longer work drug-trafficking stories alone, said Jorge Morales Borbón, the paper's assistant managing editor. "We won't stop covering the issue," he said. But reporters will no longer put their byline to the drug stories, he added.