Drug Lords vs. the Press in Latin America
CHEPESIUK, RON
UNDERMINING DEMOCRACY Drug Lords vs. the Press in Latin America By Ron Chepesiuk For many years Manuel Buendia was Mexico's most influential journalist. His muckraking column in...
...When Frederico Sadat, vice director of the leading Bolivian weekly Opinion, was asked why his magazine did not mention it, he responded somewhat ambiguously...
...A few days later a dynamite explosion destroys the automobile of Edgar Puerto Carrero, a correspondent for the Lima daily La Republica...
...One reason for the feeling is that on numerous occasions the Mexican government—which is able to exert leverage on the press by controlling the supply of newsprint and precious official advertising—has gone out of its way to discredit the Fourth Estate...
...Journalists have been threatened, beaten, kidnapped, and murdered...
...The two journalists had taken a strong stand against corruption and drug trafficking...
...But after leaving his office on May 30, Buendia was shot four times in the back at point-blank range by a motorcycle gunman...
...That is precisely what happened in February 1989 after Guillermo Medina Sanchez, the chief of Colombia's national police, retired with official honors...
...Police under Zorilla's command also raided Buendia's office and took with them four document files, including one labeled "Dirección Federal de Seguridad...
...Meanwhile, a journalist named Gustavo Gorriti began an investigation of Langbery for the Peruvian magazine Carrelas...
...I hope it won't be too late...
...We are just endangering our lives for nothing," says Arturo Madrigal, an editor of El Diario in Nuevo Laredo...
...In the United States, the violence produced by the drug trade is not something that threatens basic democratic institutions—yet," says Maria Jimena Duzan, an investigative reporter for El Espectador...
...Thus, although he was arrested a year after his return when a joint Peruvian-U.S...
...Attempts are also made to set fire to the house of Manuel Arevelo, areporter for El Diario de Marko who has been making inquiries into drug trafficking...
...Both my wife and I carry handguns," admitted one journalist...
...In many of the killings the Mexican government itself is thought to be involved insome way...
...He also founded a newspaper, PN, that quickly became the biggest circulating daily in Peruvian history...
...once this happens, the Colombian papers pick up the story...
...A few days later, on April 3, the paper appeared with a blank space on its editorial page...
...The killers then run up and shoot each of the victims once more in the forehead to ensure they are dead...
...In May 1984, Buendia hinted to colleagues that he was about to publish his biggest story yet: an exposé of the close ties between drug traffickers and highranking Mexican government officials...
...We don't know whose interests we would be serving if we published the contents of the cassettes...
...Eventually arrested in Costa Rica, Quintero has been brought back to Mexico...
...The country's Union of Democratic Journalists lists 55 of its members as having been killed in the last 19 years, 31 of them during the 1982-88 term of President Miguel de la Madrid...
...The front line is in Colombia, where 43 journalists have been murdered in the last decade...
...While there is no official censorship of any kind, Colombian journalists note that self-imposed restrictions on how they cover the news can be just as stifling...
...In other Latin American countries, like Bolivia, the press has been too intimidated to resort to this indirect tactic...
...Since thebeginningofthe'80s, deadlines for journalists in Mexico and other Latin American nations have often been literal...
...The first investigator to arrive at the scene of the Excelsior columnist's murder was José Antonio Zorilla Perez, chief of the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (the Mexican equivalent to the FBI).He reportedly removed two bullets and several documents carried by the victim...
...According to the Miamibased InterAmerican Press Association, which monitors the media throughout the Western Hemisphere, drug traffickers and their paramilitary units are effectively suppressing press freedom in at least 10 countries: Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Guyana, Bolivia, Chile, Haiti, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru...
...The Fourth Estate can expect little protection from authorities in Mexico, at least judging from recent experience...
...I received threats, but I had to do my duty...
...Soldiers are everywhere in the paper's plant, and German shepherds make regular rounds sniffing for explosives...
...Incidents iikeuieEIEspectadorbombing have resulted in a climate of fear and intimidation for journalists in Colombia, a nation renowned among its Latin American neighbors for its long tradition of press freedom...
...This is nothing less than a war to decide who governs these countries...
...Today we don't know its influence over politics...
...advertisers have been intimidated...
...José Salgar, editor in chief of the Bogota daily El Espectador, warns: "If the newspapers do not wage war, it is possible that Colombia will fall under the power of the drug traffickers and the wave will continue to spread throughout Latin America...
...His muckraking column in Excélsior, aleading daily, was syndicated in over 200 newspapers and uncovered everything from CIA activities in the country to violence by extreme Right-wing groups...
...Subsequently, some of the country's leading journalists persuade Gomez to produce a documentary on colleagues who have left Colombia under the threat of death...
...After being bombed last September, Colombia's El Espectador now looks more like a bunker than a newspaper...
...In the spring of 1989, El Pais of Spain and the London Independent carried stories telling of videotaped conversations between prominent members of Bolivia's Nationalist Democratic Action Party (ADN) and the country's former " king of cocaine, " Robert Suarez...
...narcotics agent Enrique Camarena...
...Cano made it known in an interview that no more editorials would be published until the government could guarantee the safety of all family members of the paper's staff, but the strategy was abandoned by April 19...
...An official report, for instance, alleges that Mexican journalists are being killed because they practice blackmail, engage in drug profiteering, and are prone to bar-room brawls...
...Only one of these cases has been solved...
...For Salgar—whose paper has taken a tough stand against the drug lords, even voicing editorial support for their extradition to the United States—this is no abstract conjecture...
...Such occasional successes notwithstanding, Gorriti and fellow Latin American journalists see the power of thedrug lords in Colombia and elsewhere increasing as long as the demand for cocaine and other illegal drugs in the United States remains strong...
...Speculation persists that other toplevel Mexican officials had a hand in the Buendia affair...
...Drug Enforcement Agency investigation interrupted a shipment to the United States of 500 kilos of cocaine —a record then for a cocaine seizure— he was freed a few days later on direct orders of the Minister of the Interior...
...In the early '80s, Langbery became an important force within the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), the main opposition party to the new civilian government...
...In 1978 Langbery returned to his native Peru from Mexico, where he spent eight years, with what was rumored to be a fabulous fortune...
...It is to our advantage that the drug traffickers don't know we carry guns...
...So perhaps only when things get worse in the U.S., when the violence crosses from the margins and ghettos of society into the mainstream, will you [Americans] understand why in Colombia they are killingjudges, politicians, and reporters...
...The experience of Carlo Langbery perhaps best demonstrates this...
...Its printing plant and electronic editing system were partly destroyed by a booby-trapped van containing 220 pounds of dynamite...
...At many newspapers, steel barriers have been erected and visitors are screened at guard booths...
...Although Sadat said nothing about fear, as the danger to Latin American journalists reporting on drugs continues to mount, extraordinary personal security precautions are being taken...
...Zorilla, incidentally, has made no secret of his friendship with Raphael Caro Quintero, a suspected drug dealer and the accused killer of U.S...
...And the feeling has been strengthened by developments in the case of Manuel Buendia...
...Of course I thought of the consequences of my investigation," says Gorriti, who is now a Lima-based free-lance journalist...
...At the end of the broadcast Gomez receives a telephone call...
...Increasingly, Colombian newspapers are resorting to a roundabout technique when they want to inform the public of drug-related corruption without incurring mafia reprisals: Their reporters pass on the information to U. S. colleagues in the hope that it will be published in newspapers or aired on television here...
...So powerful was Langbery that the government feared he might be planning a coup in collaboration with the military...
...and Canadian journalists who seek to expose their operations and government links...
...Despite the fact that one of ADN's leaders resigned as a consequence, no hint of the scandal ever appeared in the Bolivian media...
...Some Colombian journalists have found it more prudent simply to look the other way rather than become another casualty of the drug war...
...I would say that I report 80 per cent of what I know," commented Enrique Santos Calderón, a columnist for the major Colombian newspaper El Tiempo...
...He tracked down Langbery's activities in Mexico and uncovered the illegal drug trading that was the source of his fortune...
...Luis' brother, Guillermo, it should be recalled, was murdered in 1986 after writing a series of columns attacking the cocaine mafia...
...Family members of journalists are particularly vulnerable...
...Largely because of the evidence they brought to light, Langbery was finally arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison, and APRA was reorganized...
...Last September, El Especladorwas the target of the most spectacular and devastating attack on the Colombian press to date...
...Elsewhere, especially in Peru and Mexico, some journalists carry guns for protection, but most say it is pointless to pack a pistol in the face of a machine gun...
...Related jailings of several other drug figures resulted in Peru's two cocaine cartels going out of business...
...Drug-related terrorism against the media has taken many forms...
...By doing so, it has sent an unspoken message: Journalists are fair game...
...S till, in at least one Latin American nation, Peru, aggressive investigative reporting has done much to curb the power of drug interests...
...Congratulations, says the caller...
...You too will be eliminated...
...Colombia, 1988—Mauricio Gomez, director of the Colombian television program 24 Horas and a relentless pursuer of stories on the drug cartel in the city of Medellin, produces and broadcasts a documentary on the millions of dollars allegedly paid by the cartel to Colombian judges and public officials...
...A number of Colombian reporters, for example, now wear bulletproof vests, travel with bodyguards and vary their route to work every day...
...The magazine published Gorriti's articles between 1982 and 1985...
...Besides, I had the unqualified editorial support of Carretas...
...No matter the circumstances behind each killing, the government has largely seemed indifferent to bringing the killers to justice," says one source who prefers to remain anonymous...
...When we sit down at the typewriter now, instead of revealing what we have learned, we evaluate the danger to ourselves and our families," confirms Alejandro Siquires, the head of Mexico's Sinaloa Journalists Association and a reporter for a Culiacan daily...
...Indeed, when Caro Quintero fled the country last year, it was with the help of papers signed by Zorilla that identified the bearer as a member of Dirección Federal de Seguridad...
...Some examples: • Peru, 1983—Carlos Veuque, the editor of Selva, is beaten when his magazine publishes articles on the drug trade...
...Those who do opt for weaponry are reluctant to talk about it...
...ambassador to Bolivia...
...at the time he was editor of El Espectador...
...Colombian journalists leaked word to Time magazine that Medina had actually been forced to resign because President Virgilio Barco Vargas learned that he had been on the Medellin cartel's payroll...
...Since the influence of the drug cartels extends northward all the way to Canada, it is conceivable, they say, that cartel heads will one day consider action against U.S...
...The traffickers, inavarietyof ways, are out to suborn the democratic system in Bolivia and in other countries of the region, " says Robert S. Gelbard, the U.S...
...The explosion injured 73 employees and caused $2.5 million worth of damage...
...But last August 25, the day after drug traffickers blew up the local branches of Colombia's two largest political parties, torched the homes of three prominent citizens, and left bombs outside the offices of Medellin's two leading radio stations, the front page of El Colombiano was devoted to a drop in the nation's revenue from coffee exports...
...physical plants and distribution centers have been bombed...
...The documentary airs, and two days later Gomez decides to leave Colombia himself, joining at least 40 other Colombian journalists in "narco exile...
...Television stations submit stories about narcotics to rigorous review before broadcast...
...For five years the investigation of his murder went nowhere, although suspicions grew that the columnist was a victim of the drug mafia's corrupting influence on the government...
...This article was written with agrantfromtheKaltenbornFoundation...
...Those who have been targeted include columnists, reporters, publishers, radio commentators, and television anchor men and women...
...Currently six of the 20 Cano family members are under police guard...
...There is a threat hanging over [Bolivian democracy]—drug trafficking...
...Soon he attained substantial influence with the military government that ruled the country until 1980...
...But don't mention my name or country...
...Since much of Latin America has only recently emerged from a period of Right-wing dictatorship, many observers worry about how the drug mafia's assault on the press will affect the struggling new democracies...
...If the two drug organizations had been allowed to grow, " observes Gorriti, "they would certainly have become large enough to be in direct competition with the Colombian drug cartels...
...During most of the 1980s, for instance, the Medellin-based newspaper El Colombiano crusaded against the drug trade...
...Ron Chepesiuk, a previous contributor to The New Leader, is a free-lance journalist specializing in Latin American affairs...
...When Colombian drug lords announced this spring that they were renewing their campaign of violence against officials and judges opposed to drug dealing, they specifically threatened the family of El Espectador president Luis Gabriel Cano...
...Only when Time printed the revelation did the Colombian press take up the story...
...Another reason is that whenever the press does succeed in exposing political corruption, it is rare that action is taken...
...Mexico, 1986—Ernesto Flores, publisher of the Mexican daily El Popular, and reporter-columnist Norma Moreno Figarroa are cut down in a fusillade of bullets...
...None of these items have reappeared, but in June 1989 Zorilla himself was arrested as the killer of the columnist...
Vol. 73 • April 1990 • No. 7
