November 14, 2008
Ciudad Juarez News
Juarez Crime Reporter Murdered, Attacks against Press Intensify
El Diario de Juarez journalist Armando Rodriguez Carreon was well-known
for countless stories about gangland killings in his hometown of Ciudad
Juarez, Chihuahua. For years, the 40-year-old police beat reporter
tirelessly published pieces about the latest executions in a violence-torn
city.
Rodriguez launched his journalistic career as a technician and
photographer for the Ciudad Juarez Channel 44 television station before
moving into print during the early 1990s. His newspaper career closely
paralleled the violent rise of the Juarez drug cartel and the women’s
slayings that became known worldwide as femicides. Popularly known as “El
Choco,” Rodriguez was among the first reporters to write about the
discoveries of raped and slain women on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.
Rodriguez’s stories, which relied a lot on police sources and often did
not implicate any particular suspects, were characterized by an almost
matter-of-fact quality that kept to the narrative even as violence kept
escalating. On Thursday morning, November 13, Rodriguez became a victim
himself when he was shot outside his home by a gunman who reportedly fled
in a waiting car.
No possible motive for the homicide was publicly disclosed, but it was
reported that Rodriguez received a text threat on his cell-phone earlier
this year. His killing occurred one week to the day that a severed human
head was discovered at a monument to journalists in Ciudad Juarez.
Local media, government officials and Mexican and international journalist
organizations quickly condemned Rodriguez’s killing, which carried the
trademark of organized crime.
Numerous public commentaries about the murder were posted on news websites
in Ciudad Juarez and neighboring El Paso, Texas. The Rodriguez slaying was
covered on the November 13 prime-time newscast of the US-based Spanish
language television network Univision, which reaches millions of viewers.
A Mexico City-based press freedom advocacy group, the Center for
Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET), said crimes against journalists like
Rodriguez “represent attacks against society because they damage the right
to be informed.” The non-governmental organization urged authorities to
conduct “an exhaustive investigation, clarify the facts and punish those
responsible so impunity does not feed other crimes.”
Rodriguez’s murder topped a spectacularly violent week in Ciudad Juarez
and the state capital of Chihuahua City four hours down the highway to the
south. Incidents included the gunning down of victims in public
thoroughfares during peak business hours, the firebombing of businesses
and the dumping of murdered bodies with intimidating messages in public
places.
The Rodriguez murder also came amid a new wave of threats and pressures
against the Ciudad Juarez press. For instance, CEPET reported that the
Ciudad Juarez daily El Mexicano was the target of intimidation by
individuals purporting to be agents of the Chihuahua state attorney
general’s office last week.
According to CEPET, a state police officer identified as “Perez” and
accompanied by other men in official vehicles strolled into the
newspaper’s office November 4 and demanded to interrogate columnist Mario
Hector Silva about sources the writer used in a story. When informed that
Silva was not on the premises, the officers allegedly grew angry,
threatened other employees and threw a photographer’s camera in the trash.
With the Rodriguez killing, at least 6 journalists have been murdered in
Mexico this year so far. Other victims include Oaxaca radio announcers
Teresa Bautista Merino and Felicitas Martinez Sanchez, Tabasco radio man
Alejandro Zenon Fonseca Estrada, Michoacan newspaper director Miguel
Villagomez Valle, and Chihuahua writer David Garcia Monroy.
An international observer mission spearheaded by the Committee to Protect
Journalists, Article 19, Open Society Institute and other press advocacy
organizations traveled to Mexico this year to investigate conditions
confronting journalists. Despite legal reforms, the mission concluded that
Mexican journalists are in dire circumstances due to violence, impunity
and governmental indifference.
Most of the 2008 journalist murders, as well as earlier cases like the
2006 murder of US journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca, remain unsolved and
unpunished. In a statement issued on November 11, Will’s family and lawyer
took strong issue with the contention of the Office of the Federal
Attorney General (PGR) that the documentarian’s killers are in custody.
Criticizing the arrests of anti-government activists for the murder, the
Will family said the PGR ignored forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts
that point to pro-government paramilitaries and public officials as the
probable killers.
In its statement, the Will family called on Mexican and US civil society,
as well as human rights, to “speak out about the impunity that is blocking
this case from advancing and in defense of the rights to freedom of
expression.”
Only hours after Armando Rodriguez was murdered, the PGR informed the
Mexican media that the same special unit assigned to investigate the Will
homicide was looking into the killing of the Ciudad Juarez journalist.
Additional sources: El Diario de Juarez November 13, 2008.
Newspapertree.com, November 13, 2008. Article by Sito Negron.
Frontenet.com, November 13, 2008. Article by Sergio Valdez. Univision,
November 13, 2008. CEPET, November 6 and November 13, 2008. Press
statements. Lapolaka.com, October 14, 2008 and November 13, 2008. El
Universal, November 13, 2008. Article by Maria de la Luz Gonzalez. La
Jornada, October 11, 2008. Article by Ernesto Martinez and La Jornada
Michoacan. Cimacnoticias, August 14, 2008. Article by Lourdes Godinez
Leal.
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
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