[NYTr] Journalist along Tex-Mex border receives threats from Drug Cartel
 
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:11:30 -0500 (CDT)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
sent by Milt Shapiro (mexnews) - Jul 15, 2007

The Houston Chronicle - July 14, 2007
http://www.chron.com

Journalist along Texas-Mexico border receives threat

Gulf drug cartel reportedly targets reporter

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau

MEXICO CITY - Government officials and journalist organizations 
expressed concern Friday about a reported threat against an unnamed 
American reporter working on the Texas-Mexico border.

Members of the Gulf drug-trafficking cartel were said to have 
originated the threat, and it seemed to focus on a journalist 
operating in Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo.

As a precaution, editors of the San Antonio Express-News ordered 
their Laredo correspondent, Mariano Castillo, to leave the area.

Express-News Editor Robert Rivard said Friday that the newspaper - 
which, like the Houston Chronicle, is owned by the Hearst Corp. - was 
being extra careful in recalling Castillo, who learned of the threat 
from a source.

"We don't know that the report is credible, and we hope it isn't. But 
until we feel comfortable knowing that, we're going to err on the 
side of caution, and we pulled Mariano out of Laredo last night," 
Rivard said. "I think that was a prudent move."

Additionally, the Dallas Morning News told Mexico City-based reporter 
Alfredo Corchado, who has written about the drug gang violence on the 
border, not to visit the area for the time being.

Diana Fuentes, the editor of the Laredo Morning Times, also owned by 
Hearst, said she and other editors had discussed the reported threat 
with their staff and gone over precautionary measures. "We take these 
reports seriously," Fuentes said, adding, "We're going to keep doing 
what we do."

Some law enforcement officials downplayed the matter.

Erik Vasys, a spokesman for the FBI San Antonio Division, which 
oversees bureau operations in Laredo, said he would not "want to 
dignify" the reported threat by discussing it.

"Law enforcement is well aware that crime reporters regularly find 
themselves in a position where they antagonize and upset the criminal 
element," Vasys said. ''If the threat is credible, the FBI will use 
all of its resources to protect the free press from intimidation or 
retaliation."

The president of the Mexico Foreign Correspondents Association, Eloy 
Aguilar, issued a statement that warned his colleagues to be 
"extremely careful and security-conscious, especially if you are 
working on stories related to drug trafficking" in the border region.

While not addressing the credibility of the threat, Tony Garza, the 
U.S. ambassador to Mexico, released a statement that said, "Threats 
against journalists, in an attempt to intimidate them from reporting 
the truth, must be condemned by all of us."

He added, "We will work with authorities ... to do everything 
possible to ensure the safety of American reporters."

Drug-related violence has killed nearly 3,500 people in the past 18 
months in Mexico. But the bloodshed has declined in recent weeks amid 
reports that the warring drug gangs had reached a truce in which they 
agreed to divide up the trafficking routes for South American cocaine 
and other narcotics into the United States.

[Houston Chronicle staffer James Pinkerton supplied reporting from 
Houston; the San Antonio Express-News also contributed.]
       
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