"Travel Advisory" Reveals U.S. Media Campaign vs. Mexico
"Were the articles in the national 'newspapers of record' part of an orchestrated media campaign to invent a very different story, in which the reputations of these families and their missing got dragged through the mud as a kind of 'collateral damage' in the information war known as the 'war on drugs?'"
And we reported that both newspapers were spoon-fed the invented "story" by the U.S. State Department as the opening salvo in its campaign to scare U.S. citizens about drugs and violence in Mexico to justify increased meddling by Washington (and U.S. media) in Mexico's upcoming 2006 election.
Hours later, the U.S. State Department (and Embassy in Mexico) issued a "travel advisory", and also a public letter from Ambassador Tony Garza to Mexican officials railing about "warfare, kidnappings and random street violence (that) will have a chilling effect on the cross-border exchange, tourism and commerce so vital to the region's prosperity."
If anyone had any doubt about our accusation that New York Times reporter Ginger Thompson and Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan had placed themselves at the service of media manipulation by U.S. officials - making themselves corrupted mercenaries to the agendas of the powerful - the orchestrated statements that have just come out of Washington and its Embassy reveal that what we called "an orchestrated media campaign" is real, it is active, and it has only just begun... Conroy and I, documenting the direct U.S. State Department role in the articles in the Times and the Post last weekend, wrote:
With Mexico heading into what ought to be its most democratic presidential contest ever (and one in which Mexico City’s center-left and activist governor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador leads in opinion polls, to the chagrin of Condoleeza Rice and company), expect more of these kinds of “news stories” in which everything Mexican shall now be flavored not with chili, but, rather, with a journalistic salsa called “narco.”
Now comes the State Department - its new Grand Pooh-bah, the radical anti-democracy interventionist Condoleeza Rice just confirmed by the Senate - upping the ante on its media campaign against Mexico.
The U.S. "travel advisory," in language conjured to invoke fear and alarm, says:
This Public Announcement is being issued to alert U.S. citizens to the current security situation along the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border in the wake of increased violence among drug traffickers. Although the majority of travelers in the region visit without mishap, violent criminal activity, including murder and kidnapping, in Mexico's northern border region has increased. The overwhelming majority of the victims of violent crime have been Mexican citizens. Nonetheless, U.S. citizens should be aware of the risk posed by the deteriorating security situation. This Public Announcement expires on April 25, 2005.
But in its zeal to inflame and invoke fright, Kondoleeza's Keystone Kops inadvertenty reveal that the U.S. drug policy imposed on Mexico is to blame for what Washington calls a rising tide of narco-violence in the country to the south:
Violent criminal activity along the U.S.-Mexico border has increased as a product of a war between criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative narcotics trade along the border. The leaders of several major criminal organizations have been arrested, creating a power vacuum. This has resulted in a wave of violence aimed primarily at members of those trafficking organizations and criminal justice officials. However, foreign visitors, including Americans, have been among the victims of homicides and kidnappings in the border region in recent months.
With those words, the State Department has just admitted that the arrests - ordered by the United States - of "the leaders of several major criminal organizations" have "created a power vacuum... that has resulted in a wave of violence."
In other words, U.S. prohibitionist drug policy is to blame for the "wave of violence" (if there is one: as a reporter who has covered Mexico and the drug war extensively since 1997, it is my sense that the amount of violence is at more or less the same levels that it has been at consistently for these eight years: the only difference now is that U.S. officials are pushing the story through their toadies in the Commercial Media).
Prohibition has always been the cause of all drug-related violence in Mexico and elsewhere. It is the prohibition of the drugs that makes their commerce a no man's land outside of the law.
So pay close attention to the "news reports" that will now come out of the U.S. Commercial Media from Mexico. Take names and take notes, kind readers. You will see, if you watch carefully, which media correspondents take dictation from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, from whom those "journalists" are dependent for their supposed scoops.
The media campaign now jumps into second gear. Ginger Thompson and Mary Jordan put it in first, and now Condoleeza's minnions have popped it into second. It's only the beginning.
Between now and the July 2006 elections in Mexico, look for ever more shrill and strident "reports" about the narco-sky falling over Mexico, and its supposed "threats" to U.S. citizens and soil.
The narco scare is our own hemisphere's version of the false "weapons of mass destruction" stories that paved public opinion to support U.S. intervention abroad.
Now they're taking that strategy and applying it to the next door neighbor's democracy.
However, unlike Iraq before the war, the Authentic Journalism renaissance men and women are here, all over the 31 states and federal district of the Republic of Mexico, and we're going to fact-check and throw the truth right back in the faces of the inauthentic simulators at every turn.
The only enemy of democracy and peace in Mexico is the U.S.-imposed drug policy... and, of course, its soldiers-of-fortune from Foggy Bottom to 43rd Street.
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To Compare and Contrast
Submitted on January 27th, 2005 by Jennifer WhitneyIraq
Israel / Palestine (not that they use that word)
Yemen
Nepal
Haiti
Colombia
Pakistan
Afghanistan
Iran
Check out the rest of the list if you like.
Get it? Countries rife with war, bombings, curfews, torture, Maoist guerrillas, massacres of opposition political parties, flooding and famine.... Sound like Mexico?
(I don't mean to appear as if I'm somehow endorsing their list or legitimizing it - as Giordano so clearly states, making it onto the list is as much a matter of political maneuvering as it is of actual safety. There are parts of Brazil, parts of Guatemala, parts of France and England even, that are much more dangerous for gringos than Iran or Lebanon. But I thought it worth pointing out with whom Mexico shares the honor of being nation-non-grata.)
Anyone want to place bets on how long it will take before Condi adds Venezuela to that list?
what do prison murders have to do with it?
Submitted on January 27th, 2005 by Charles MostollerWhat is really going on? Why is the Mexican government sending troops to occupy its high security prisons?
The Mexican Prison Situation
Submitted on January 27th, 2005 by Al GiordanoI reply:
Mexico's prison system is (like that of the U.S.) overcrowded and rife with corruption. In both countries, it is easier to procure illegal drugs inside the walls than outside. And both countries' prisons are overcrowded precisely because of the war on drugs, which swamps law enforcement to the point where the governments can't deal with real crime: that is predatory, and violent, crime.
One famous narco-trafficker, a couple years ago, by the name of Chapo Guzman, just "walked out of" one of Mexico's three "maximum security" prisons. He went free, after reportedly bribing guards to look the other way.
More recently, another prisoner, reported to be close to another famous narco-trafficker, was killed inside the prison. Stories in the Mexican press revealed that the prisons were cesspools of violence and crime: nothing new there. Prisons in both countries are. But the press attention made it a political issue.
So Mexico City Governor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called on the national government to put the Armed Forces in charge of the prisons. At first the Fox administration balked at the suggestion, terming it ridiculous, but tried its own crackdown at the prisons. Then some reputed narcos or organized criminals dressed up in police uniforms outside the prison and set up a "road block" that appeared to be searching cars. When the guards arrived at work, they killed them. It was violence between criminals and law enforcement agents; typical drug war fare. Been happening for years... but... A few more sensational press stories later, the government did an about-face and sends in the military.
Not that many expect the military (comprised of soldiers even more underpaid than prison guards) will be able to get a grip on the situation. An overcrowded prison is an overcrowded prison. But the problem is not new anyway. What is new is that the media makes a big deal about it. And this, too, gives Washington and lazy U.S. reporters more "evidence" to wave that the drug war in Mexico is supposedly boiling out of control.
In any case, nobody has suggested that a single disappeared gringo was last seen in one of those prisons.
Ramírez: "Alerta Turística" por NYT y WP
Submitted on January 28th, 2005 by Al GiordanoINDICADOR POLITICO
Alerta turística, por notas de NYT y WP
Pero fue información falsa y manipulada
por Carlos Ramírez
En el contexto de la emisión de la alerta turística del Departamento norteamericano de Estado y de la carta del embajador Tony Garza a las autoridades, los periodistas norteamericanos Al Giordano y Bill Conroy difundieron el miércoles en su sitio www.narconews.com un despacho periodístico para revelar que las informaciones sobre secuestros de estadunidenses en la frontera tamaulipeca habían sido tergiversados por la prensa de EU.
El reporte de Giordano y Conroy resulta extraordinariamente oportuno porque prueban que las quejas de Washington se basaron en reportes periodísticos falsos publicados en la gran prensa norteamericana, sobre todo en el The New York Times y en el The Washington Post. Los corresponsales Ginger Thompson del Times y Mary Jordan del Post publicaron la semana pasada notas sobre secuestros de ciudadanos norteamericanos presuntamente realizados por el narco.
Pero la información de las dos enviadas fue manipulada. Por tanto, la alerta turística del Departamento de Estado se basó en informaciones que no corresponden a la realidad. Los norteamericanos desaparecidos en la frontera no se ajustan al patrón de los secuestros. Y de hecho, reportan Giordano y Conroy, los narcos tampoco se dedican a secuestrar personas. Un dato es más que revelador: un secuestro debe estar ligado con la solicitud de rescate. Y los familiares de las personas desaparecidas no han recibido en meses alguna demanda de rescate.
Lo interesante de la investigación de Giordano y Conroy radica en la comprobación de las falsedades de los reportes de Thompson y Jordan. Los dos periodistas de Narconews visitaron la misma plaza que reportaron las corresponsales del NYT y del WP. Y se encontraron con las partes interpretadas de sus reportes. Inclusive hablaron con Pablo Cisneros, padre de Brenda Y. Cisneros, desparecida en septiembre pasado. Pero, dice el afligido padre, "hablamos de nuestra historia con las periodistas" pero "ellas decidieron publicar otra cosa".
La tesis de las informaciones de las corresponsales del Times y del Post radicó en el señalamiento de que bandas de narcotraficantes eran responsables de secuestros de ciudadanos norteamericanos que cruzaban la frontera. Ello llevó a la conclusión de que las personas presuntamente secuestradas estaban relacionadas con el narco. Sin embargo, en los despachos de las corresponsales no aportan datos que prueben esa relación.
La investigación de Giordano y Conroy reveló que las dos corresponsales de Nueva York y Washington viajaron prácticamente el mismo día a Nuevo Laredo y entrevistaron a las mismas personas para llegar a las mismas conclusiones. Inclusive, cometieron el error profesional de empalmar en un mismo texto dos historias diferentes: el narco y los secuestros. Pero se tomaron la libertad interpretativa de ligar ambos hechos sin presentar evidencias concretas.
La pieza que falta para probar la tesis de los secuestros radica en la petición de rescate. Pero en los casos señalados por las corresponsales, los familiares no han recibido ninguna petición de rescate. Las personas simplemente desaparecieron. Pero al verse incluidas en un reporte periodístico de narco, resulta que las personas desaparecidas fueron presentadas como involucradas con el narcotráfico, lo que indignó a los familiares. El reporte de Thompson lo dice claramente: "un funcionario norteamericano dijo que algunos de los desaparecidos parecen ser víctimas inocentes, pero probablemente estaban relacionados con traficantes de drogas".
Pablo Cisneros, el padre de una joven desaparecida, se indigna con las conclusiones de las corresponsaldes del Times y del Post. "No es cierto", agrega.
Giordano y Conroy encontraron la fuente primaria de información de Thompson y Jordan: el cónsul estadunidense en Nuevo Laredo, Michael Yoder. Sin embargo, la capacidad de análisis de Yoder quedó en entredicho al declarar que el grupo Los Zetas sería el presunto responsable de los narcosecuestros. Yoder señaló que Los Zetas también se dedican a secuestrar para obtener rescates en efectivo. Sin embargo, Los Zetas es un grupo paramilitar al servicio de la banda de Osiel Cárdenas y sus tareas nunca han tenido que ver con el secuestro. Son nada más sicarios. Y por el pago millonario que reciben de la droga no se envolverían en secuestros por unos cuantos miles de dólares.
La investigación de Giordano y Conroy llevó a una conclusión lógica: las bandas de narcos no pueden dedicarse al secuestro porque entonces jalarían la atención de las autoridades en asuntos menores como el rapto y entorpecerían el funcionamiento del millonario tráfico de drogas. "No tiene sentido" que los narcos secuestren y afecten el comercio de drogas, les dijo un ex agente de la DEA. Lo pequeño afecta las grandes utilidades, les agregó un funcionario del Departamento de Seguridad Territorial.
Probablemente la razón de fondo que se escondió detrás de los textos de Thompson y Jordan fue parte de una estrategia de presión estadunidense. Ello llevaría a la percepción de que el The New York Times y el The Washington Post fueron utilizados --conciente o inconcientemente-- como parte de la diplomacia de presiones de la Casa Blanca. Un ex funcionario de aduanas les dijo a Giordano y a Conroy que agencias de EU habrían sentado la tesis de narcosecuestros parta obligar a las autoridades mexicanas a reforzar la seguridad fronteriza con el apoyo de EU.
No es la primera vez que el The New York Times manipula información sobre narcotráfico en México para ayudar a los intereses y presiones del gobierno de EU. Antes de las elecciones del 2000, el corresponsal Sam Dillon publico reportajes también con información manipulada que fueron desmentidos. Sin probidad periodística, Dillon excluyó esos textos de su expediente para el Pulitzer. Asimismo, escondió información sobre el narco en Yucatán porque involucraba al banquero Roberto Hernández.
Lo malo, sin embargo, es que los textos ligeros de Thompson y Jordan fueron usados por el Departamento de Estado para presionar a México con una alerta turística. Y la gran prensa de EU fue manipulada para una maniobra diplomática contra México sobre hechos dudosos y hasta inexistentes.
www.indicador-politico.com.mx
cramirez@lacrisis.com.mx
Ramírez: Traveler's Advisory, NYT & WP
Submitted on January 28th, 2005 by Al GiordanoTraveler’s Advisory, Because of NYT and WP Stories
But It Was Based on False and Manipulated Information
By Carlos Ramírez
After the U.S. State Department announced a traveler’s advisory and a letter from Ambassador Tony Garza to Mexican authorities, North American journalists Al Giordano and Bill Conroy at www.narconews.com published a journalistic report on Wednesday that reveals that the information about U.S. citizens being kidnapped along the border of Tamaulipas had been distorted by the U.S. press.
The report by Giordano and Conroy turns out to be extraordinarily timely because it proves that Washington’s complaints were based on false journalistic reports published in the major North American press, above all in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Correspondents Ginger Thompson of the Times and Mary Jordan of the Post last week published articles about kidnappings of U.S. citizens presumably conducted by the narco.
But the information by the two correspondents was manipulated. As such, the traveler’s advisory of the State Department was based on information that did not correspond to reality. The U.S. citizens that have disappeared along the border don’t fit the pattern of kidnappings. In fact, report Giordano and Conry, the narcos don’t dedicate themselves to kidnapping people. One fact is most relevant: A kidnapping should result in a ransom demand. And the families of the disappeared persons have not received any such ransom note for months.
What’s interesting about the Giordano and Conroy investigation is that it proves the falsehoods of the reports by Thompson and Jordan. The two Narco News journalists investigated the same facts that the NYT and WP correspondents reported. And they were found wanting. They even spoke with Pablo Cisneros, the father of Brenda Y. Cisneros, who disappeared last September. But the grieving father says, “we told them our story,” but, “they decided to print a different one.”
The thesis of the reports by the Times and Post correspondents was that narco-trafficking gangs were responsible for kidnappings of U.S. citizens who crossed the border. They concluded that the kidnapped people were related to the narco. However, their articles did not offer facts to prove such a relation.
The investigation by Giordano and Conroy revealed that the two correspondents from New York and Washington traveled on practically the same day to Laredo and interviewed the same people to come to the same conclusings. They even committed the same professional mistake of mixing up two different stories in the same text: one about the narco and one about kidnappings. And they took interpretative liberty to link both sets of facts without presenting concrete evidence.
The missing piece to prove the theory about kidnappings is found in the matter of ransom notes. But in the cases reported by the correspondents, the families haven’t received any ransom demand. The missing persons simply disappeared. But upon seeing them included in a newspaper report about the narco, the missing persons were presented as if they were involved in narco-trafficking, which upsets the families. The report by Thompson says, clearly, “One U.S. official said that while some of the missing appear to have been innocent victims, more were probably involved with drug traffickers.”
Pablo Cisneros, the father of the missing young woman, was indignant in response to the conclusions by the Times and Post correspondents. “It’s not true,” he said.
Giordano and Conroy discovered the primary source of the reports by Thompson and Jordan: the U.S. Consul in Nuevo Laredo, Michael Yoder. However, Yoder’s capacity for analysis is placed in doubt when he declares that the group known as Los Zetas (“The Z’s”) was the presumed narco-kidnapper. Yoder said that Los Zetas also dedicate themselves to kidnapping to obtain cash as ransom. However, Los Zetas are a paramilitary group in the service of (narco-trafficker) Osiel Cardenas and their job has never been kidnapping. They’re hit-men, no less. And for the millionaire pay that they receive from drugs they don’t involve themselves in kidnappings for a few thousand dollars.
Giordano and Conroy’s investigation came to a logical conclusion: the nargo gangs can’t dedicate themselves to kidnapping because they would then draw the attention of the authorities over lesser matters like abductions and harm the millionaire work of trafficking drugs. “It doesn’t make sense” that the narcos kidnap thus affecting drug commerce, a former DEA agent told them. Little things affect large profits, added an official of the Department of Homeland Security.
The probable reason at the core of what hid behind the reports of Thompson and Jorden was that of a U.S. strategy to pressure Mexico. This leads to the perception that the New York Times and the Washington Post were used – consciously or unconsciously – as part of diplomatic pressures from the White House. A former Customs official told Giordano and Conroy that U.S. agencies theorized that the narco-kidnapping stories would obligate Mexican authorities to increase border security forces with the support of the U.S.
This is not the first time that the New York Times has manipulated information about drug trafficking in Mexico to help the interests and pressures of the U.S. government. Before the 2000 elections, the correspondent Sam Dillon published reports that also had manipulated information and which were refuted. Without journalistic proof, Dillon excluded key texts from his proposal to win a Pulitzer. He also hid information about the narco in the Yucatan because it involved the banker Roberto Hernandez.
The worst thing, however, is that the shallow texts by Thompson and Jordan were used by the State Department to pressure Mexico with a traveler’s advisory. And the major press of the U.S. was manipulated on behalf of a diplomatic maneuver against Mexico based on doubtful and even inexistent facts.
www.indicador-politico.com.mx
cramirez@lacrisis.com.mx
27 abductions in six months
Submitted on January 28th, 2005 by Don Henry Ford Jr.Makes me wonder what the real motive is. Perhaps the current administration senses an "unfriendly" government will be elected in 06 and is sowing the first seeds for hostilites.
To be sure the bush administration and the United States as a whole has lost favor in Latin American countries. For good reason.
Mexico City Has Less Crime, More Tourism
Submitted on January 28th, 2005 by Al GiordanoAccording to today's daily La Jornada, the true statistics tell a very different story from Mexico's capital city:
- According to the city's Tourism Secretary, crimes against international tourists have been reduced.
- This has led to an increase of tourism by 9.2 percent in 2004 over the previous year: In 2003 there were 2,595.500 international tourists visiting the city. In 2004 came 2, 835,317.
Since most international tourists arrive via the Mexico City airport, these numbers likely reflect an overall increase in visits to many parts of the country.The hard numbers offer yet more evidence that the Ambassador is attempting to knowingly deceive the public with his exaggeratedl statements about crime in Mexico.
Prisoners Undercut Mexican Drug Crackdown
Submitted on January 31st, 2005 by Richard PilkingtonLenient Penal Policies, Corruption Allow Cartel Leaders to Thrive Behind Bars
By Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 30, 2005; Page A23
MEXICO CITY -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47598-20 05Jan29
Maybe we should watch what we say
Submitted on January 31st, 2005 by Benjamin MelançonWhat, did Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan google herself, poke around the NarcoSphere, and decide she could work a corrupt prisons angle into the media campaign against Mexico?
Richard, could you give us anything from that article? The Washington Post is down. Do Jordan and Sullivan somehow manage to work the travel advisory into their story? Do prison deaths get mentioned in the same sentence, to create the perception of connection?
Crime in Mexico
Submitted on January 31st, 2009 by Kristy Deegan (not verified)