Armed Commando Attacks Newspaper [Nuevo Laredo News]

Feb. 8, 2006 — Nuevo Laredo’s El Mañana daily newspaper is vowing to continue publishing in the aftermath of an armed attack. On Monday evening, Feb. 6, at least three masked gunmen burst into the newsroom located in Tamaulipas state across the border from Texas and began firing AK-47 rifles and AR-15 rifles. Thirty or more shots were fired and one grenade set off before the attackers, shouting insults, escaped in two vehicles along with other presumed accomplices. More than two dozen reporters and other workers who were in the newsroom when the assault happened quickly hit the ground. Veteran reporter Jaime Orozco Tey, 40, was hit in the lungs and back several times by bullets.

Orozco was transported to the hospital, where he remained in critical condition. Another reporter, Osvaldo Rodriguez, was struck by flying glass. Orozco serves as the vice-president of the Nuevo Laredo Journalists Association. He is the father of two young daughters. El Mañana’s editorial staff called the attack "another page in the book of violence that is becoming terrorism." Said the daily, "It’s another attack against a newspaper that only seeks to inform, not hurt anyone."

The El Mañana attack was yet another violent incident linked to organized crime that involves the growing use of grenades. In recent weeks, attackers also have utilized grenades against suspected rivals and police in the states of Michoacan and Guerrero. On the same evening of the El Mañana attack, attackers exploded two grenades at the home of Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, police chief Hector Omar Maganda, injuring a guard.

Michoacan and Guerrero are the southern front in a drug cartel war for the control of drug import and export routes stretching from the Pacific Coast north to the US- Mexico border. Although grenades are reserved for the exclusive use of the Mexican armed forces, no government officials have publicly explained where and how the cartels are obtaining their grenades.

Despite military and police deployments in Michoacan, Guerrero and Tamaulipas under the federal goverment’s Safe Mexico anti-organized crime operation, gangland violence has been on the rise since January 1. In Nuevo Laredo, for instance, 25 people have been murdered since the beginning of this year. On the same day El Mañana was assaulted, two other suspected murder victims were found dead in Nuevo Laredo.

The El Mañana attack marked a brazen escalation in a violent campaign against the press in Tamaulipas state. Reynosa’s Center for Border Studies and the Promotion of Human Rights has documented 46 attacks from November 1999 to May 2005 against Tamaulipas journalists, including verbal attacks, beatings with fists and baseball bats, shootings, car burnings, kidnappings, disappearances, and murder.

In 2004, El Mañana’s editorial director, Roberto Javier Mora Garcia, was knifed to death in front of his home in a crime whose circumstances are still questioned. One of two men arrested for the homicide, a US citizen, was later murdered in a Tamaulipas state prison. Last year, radio journalist Guadalupe Garcia was shot outside the Nuevo Laredo station at which she worked. After struggling with her wounds for days, Garcia died in a hospital.

Just days prior to the attack on the El Mañana newsroom, the newspaper hosted a Nuevo Laredo conference about drug trafficking and self-censorship organized by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Representatives of 40 border press outlets attended the meeting. In the wake of the shooting and greande attack, the IAPA demanded that President Fox take energetic measures to stem the violence.

Speaking in Sinaloa state, President Fox declared that organized crime would not bring the Mexican government and society to its knees and vowed to "redouble our force, redouble our efforts" against criminal activity. President Fox added the Federal Office of the Attorney General was taking over the investigation of the El Manana attack.

However, El Mañana’s executive editor, Ramon Dario Cantu, earlier expressed skepticism about any one being held accountable for the assault on his newsroom. "What’s the point of investigating?" Dario questioned. We know it was an assault by drug traffickers." Dario added the newspaper will further tone down its coverage of drug trafficking to safeguard the lives of journalists and other employees.

In its editorial pages, El Mañana expressed some surprise at the attack, noting the newspaper already practiced self- censorship because of the atmosphere of impunity surrounding attacks against journalists.

"Since the murder of Roberto Mora, we saw that the authorities were surpassed by organized crime and there were no guarantees for journalists," El Mañana said. The newspaper also used the occasion to call for a new drug policy that focuses more on education and prevention and explores the legalization of "soft" drugs. In the meantime, El Manana noted the illegal drug export business surges ahead in Nuevo Laredo. "Six thousand trucks cross here every day and the North American authorities only physically check 50 or 60. That makes this plaza as important as Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez," El Mañana said.

Sources: Enfoque Nacional, February 7, 2006. El Mañana, February 7and 8, 2006, articles by editiorial staff and Mario Hugo Rivera. Laredo Morning Times, February 7 and 8, 2006. Articles by Miguel Timoshenkov and Vicente Rangel. El Universal, February 7 and 8, 2006. Articles by Jose Luis Ruiz, editorial staff and the Notimex news agency. El Sur, February 7, 2006. Article by Brenda Escobar. Proceso, February 7, 2006. Article by Gabriela Hernandez.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico