{"id":267492,"date":"2016-09-14T17:41:11","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T17:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/every-journalist-mourns-a-dead-journalist\/"},"modified":"2016-09-14T17:41:11","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T17:41:11","slug":"every-journalist-mourns-a-dead-journalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/every-journalist-mourns-a-dead-journalist\/","title":{"rendered":"Every Journalist Mourns a Dead Journalist"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"noe-zavaleta-holds-photo-of-ruben-espinosa-xalapa-july-31\"<\/p>\n

No\u00e9 Zavaleta holds up photographs of his murdered colleague, photojournalist Rub\u00e9n Espinosa, in Xalapa, on July 31, 2016. (Photo by Patrick Timmons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

No\u00e9 Zavaleta is a brave Mexican journalist. He works\u2014or used to work\u2014in Veracruz. \u00a0In the last six years, seventeen journalists have been murdered and five have gone missing<\/a> in the mountainous coastal state that rings a sizable chunk of the Gulf of Mexico, according to Articulo 19. Its eight million inhabitants have access to at least 66 newspapers in print, with many more online sources, television, and radio. But the risks faced by its news gatherers mark Veracruz as notorious: it is the most dangerous place in the Americas to work as a journalist. It\u2019s this risk that has forced Zavaleta to take a break from reporting from Veracruz. The risks he faces recently worsened.<\/p>\n

At 35, the broad-smiled Zavaleta is jovial, even jocular, though he\u2019s a veteran of reporting from a de facto warzone. The war between organized criminal groups has quickened of late, particularly in the state\u2019s south and center. The Zetas \u2013 formed in the 1990s out of deserters from the Mexican Army\u2019s special forces<\/a> \u2013 are no longer dominant but are still powerful, dueling with their adversaries, the Matazetas<\/em> (Zeta killers), also known as the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generaci\u00f3n<\/em> (CJNG), who are rumored to be backed by the Veracruz government\u2019s own security forces<\/a>. The body count indicates a dreadful dynamic: from 2015 to 2016, homicides in Veracruz increased 120 percent, from 219 homicides to 537 homicides. In July 2016, the count stood at 132 homicides, making it the state\u2019s bloodiest month since 1997<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zavaleta is spooked by recent threats made against him for his first book published in June 2016, Javier Duarte\u2019s Hell<\/em> (published in Spanish as El Infierno de Javier Duarte)<\/em>. Duarte, 43, is the controversial, scandal-plagued governor of Veracruz, Mexico\u2019s third largest state. In his book, Zavaleta paints a graphic picture of what corruption, impunity and government incompetence have looked like between 2010 and 2016, the sexenio<\/em> (or six years) of Duarte\u2019s government. His term of office ends on November 30, 2016.<\/p>\n

\"No\u00e9<\/p>\n

No\u00e9 Zavaleta\u2019s book, Javier Duarte\u2019s Hell, at its Xalapa Book Launch at the Casino Jalape\u00f1o, on August 12, 2016. (Photo by Patrick Timmons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Duarte has never been able to\u2014or has chosen not to\u2014gain control over the state\u2019s public security crisis. Veracruz\u2019s long coastline and strategic hold over transportation links to Mexico City, the U.S.-Mexico border and ports along the Gulf Coast make it a prize for both human and drug smugglers. Violence is particularly acute around the southern oil city of Coatzacoalcos and in the mountainous central region of Orizaba. But other places are also affected, too: in the port of Veracruz, there have been shootouts in June<\/a> and July<\/a>; in the northern coastal access city of Poza Rica, a journalist was shot outside her home<\/a>, perhaps in a failed robbery; and, in the state capital of Xalapa, a group of armed men kidnapped two women from the same family from their home, beheaded them, and then dumped their bodies and heads in different locations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The surge in homicides in Veracruz accounts, in part, for the uptick in Mexico\u2019s overall homicide numbers. The murder rate worsened in 2015 and is on pace to worsen again in 2016. In 2014, Mexico\u2019s national murder rate was 16.71 per 100,000 inhabitants. In 2015, the murder rate is 16.96 per 100,000. In 2015, there were 17,028 homicides in Mexico<\/a>. Neither the state government in Veracruz nor the national government in Mexico\u2014both from the same party, the Partido de la Revoluci\u00f3n Institucional<\/em> (PRI)\u2014have succeeded in reducing homicides. \u00a0At the hands of Governor Duarte in Veracruz, spending on public safety more than doubled during the past six years of his administration, from $120 million USD to $250 million USD<\/a>. But the only thing to show for it is a worsening public security crisis.<\/p>\n

No\u00e9 Zavaleta has a comb of thick, gelled-back black hair, a thatch atop a handsome, rectangular face. He\u2019s angered some important people in Veracruz for his investigative reporting, but he\u2019s pleased many more with diligent investigations about Duarte\u2019s disastrous time in office. Audiences packed presentations about the book throughout Veracruz in August. But he is spooked\u2014the book\u2019s publication has brought threats against his life\u2014and instead of walking through Veracruz unaccompanied while he reports, he now has bodyguards. He\u2019s also taken the precaution of taking a break from reporting in the state; now he reports about Veracruz from Mexico City. Having to seek refuge in Mexico City is not an ideal situation for a provincial journalist, but Zavaleta wants to keep himself safe and, as the Duarte administration reaches its end, the risks against journalists reporting on its various crises\u2014from public security to the financial scandal surrounding Duarte\u2014have increased.<\/p>\n

Zavaleta was born in Xalapa, Mexico, in 1981. He graduated from the Universidad Veracruzana in Communications in 2003, doing a stint after graduation at Sur<\/em>, a newspaper in Boca del R\u00edo now called Imagen del Golfo<\/em>, the shiny, suburban city connected to the down-at-heel Port of Veracruz. <\/em>Eventually Zavaleta began to write for Blog.Expediente.Com\u00a0<\/em>under the instruction of Luis Vel\u00e1zquez, a retired journalism professor with an eye for astute political analysis and biting satire.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not well known that Vel\u00e1squez has almost single-handedly trained a younger generation of critical, investigative reporters in Veracruz. Zavaleta\u2019s articles at the blog soon became indispensable reading for journalist Marcela Turati. Currently a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University for her reporting in Mexico over the last 20 years, Turati turned to Zavaleta\u2019s writing to find out what was going on at the beginning of Duarte\u2019s term as governor of Veracruz. \u201cFrequently my searches always led to stories by No\u00e9 Zavaleta,\u201d she said on August 10 at the Mexico City launch of Javier Duarte\u2019s Hell<\/em>. Turati recommended him to colleagues at Proceso<\/em> in 2012; he\u2019s been submitting regular reporting about Veracruz ever since.<\/p>\n

Zavaleta has never shied from documenting the disaster roiling his native state, a place he says where under Duarte\u2019s rule \u201chell established a franchise.\u201d Yet the dangers are obvious:Proceso<\/em> has suffered the murders of two of its Veracruz reporters, Regina Mart\u00ednez<\/a> in April 2012 and Rub\u00e9n Espinosa on July 31 2015, shot to death along with four other civilians in a Mexico City apartment<\/a>. In fact, it was Mart\u00ednez\u2019s murder that prompted Turati\u2019s recommendation to Proceso<\/em>. \u201cWhen Proceso<\/em> hired me in 2012, I wasn\u2019t Regina Mart\u00ednez\u2019s replacement,\u201d he told me. He started at Proceso<\/em> to cover her murder, and stayed on to cover politics and corruption, public safety, and governmental incompetence.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also fair to say that, in Veracruz, journalists did not just report the news, they became news, too: a significant part of Zavaleta\u2019s book recounts violence against journalists. He pays the most attention to his Proceso<\/em> colleagues, Mart\u00ednez and Espinosa. First he joined the staff to report on the investigation into Mart\u00ednez\u2019s murder, staying on as Veracruz correspondent based in Xalapa. Soon he befriended photojournalist Rub\u00e9n Espinosa. They worked steadily together in Xalapa and throughout Veracruz until Espinosa\u2019s murder in Mexico City in July 2015.<\/p>\n

Sitting in his office at the Cr\u00f3nica de Xalapa<\/em><\/a>, a news website that Zavaleta directs\u2014 like most Mexican journalists he has to support himself by working more than one job\u2014 the Xalape\u00f1o native tells me about why he wrote his book, how he works as a journalist in Veracruz, and what the limits are to reporting when journalists are murdered with impunity. He explained why he keeps on working, notwithstanding the many journalists murdered in the state during the Duarte years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI keep working for two reasons. One reason sounds kind of dumb. What else am I going to do? Drive a taxi? Sell mobile phones? Grab my camera and go to churches for weddings and quincea\u00f1eras?<\/em> Reporting is what I know how to do. I don\u2019t know how to do anything else. I don\u2019t know if I do it well. The many\u2014 or the few depending on what people want to see\u2014 readers I have must decide that.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean, imagine if I let my resolve to report cave in. I\u2019ve seen mothers of the disappeared spend more than a thousand days looking for their missing children. Every day they wake up wondering if their child has eaten and if they are going to eat breakfast that day.<\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s also a bit of civil resistance, too. You come across so much pain in the streets. I mean, imagine if I let my resolve to report cave in. I\u2019ve seen mothers of the disappeared spend more than a thousand days looking for their missing children. Every day they wake up wondering if their child has eaten and if they are going to eat breakfast that day.<\/span> There are even women who have become activists after they have had to bury their children.\u201d Zavaleta dedicated his book to these women, and to Espinosa, his murdered colleague and friend.<\/p>\n

Javier Duarte\u2019s Hell<\/em> is timely. It\u2019s the first book to chronicle the events of Duarte\u2019s six years in power\u2014twenty stories in plain prose about \u201ccorruption, impunity, and government negligence,\u201d he tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s a book about the place where there have been 950 disappearances during this sexenio<\/em>. It\u2019s brutal. Most of them are young people, between 17 and 27.\u201d<\/p>\n

He tells me what he has to do to get those figures, a statistical topography of pain and suffering that Duarte\u2019s state government refuses to acknowledge. \u201cI got the numbers on disappearances through transparency laws,\u201d says Zavaleta. \u201cYou have heard of InfoMex? I request data through transparencia<\/em>,\u201d he says, referring to the freedom of information portals of all Mexican government websites. \u201cThen I have to go through review procedures and submit request after request.\u201d From his desk in Xalapa he pulls out a stack of near-to-hand papers associated with freedom of information act requests, the top sheaf from the Defense Ministry detailing its anti-narcotic activities in Veracruz, number of square meters of marijuana burned, poppy destroyed, the statistics of the drug war.<\/p>\n

\"No\u00e9<\/p>\n

No\u00e9 Zalaveta sifts through documents from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests, at the offices of La Cr\u00f3nica de Xalapa, July 2016. (Photo by Patrick Timmons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Even for Zavaleta the book is not quite the in-depth reporting he would like. \u201cIn Veracruz, you have to scratch around where you can and up to the limits of where you can, too. It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t want to investigate, it\u2019s that, as in my case, there are limits to where you can get to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turati\u2019s prologue to the book captures the dilemma of the working Veracruz journalist:\u00a0Veracruz \u201cis a place where the air is toxic for journalists. Those who can flee do so. Statistics do not count those displaced and exiled.\u201d<\/p>\n

The University of San Diego\u2019s Freedom Expression Project at its Trans-Border Institute estimates that at least 25 journalists have fled Veracruz since 2011<\/a>. Indeed, after the recent threats, Zavaleta added himself to their number, deciding to flee the state. He\u2019s not alone. Last year prize-winning photojournalist Felix M\u00e1rquez decided to pursue opportunities in Chile, immediately after Espinosa\u2019s murder. And M\u00e1rquez, like Zavaleta, refuses to say he has gone into exile. \u201cTaking a break is more like it,\u201d Zavaleta wrote me in late August.<\/p>\n

The depressing facts of being a working journalist in Veracruz do not deter Zavaleta from continuing to report. Tall, energetic and demonstrative, Zavaleta speaks as he writes. He\u2019s quick-paced and eloquent at book presentations in Mexico City and Xalapa, always using a story to illuminate a point. His writing draws upon clearly defining characters that allow him to describe corruption, organized crime, and governmental negligence. Zavaleta\u2019s articles stand out in Proceso<\/em>, Mexico\u2019s oldest and most prestigious investigative journalism magazine. Espinosa\u2019s photographs often heightened his articles\u2019 reception. In fact, it\u2019s an Espinosa photo on the book\u2019s front cover.<\/p>\n

Zavaleta\u2019s persistence with transparency requests pays off. Duarte\u2019s government has consistently sought to downplay the public security crisis, but the facts, after Zavaleta uncovers them, are inescapable. Mexico\u2019s Attorney General (Procuradar\u00eda General de la Rep\u00fablica, <\/em>PGR) provided Zavaleta with statistics on forced disappearances since 2012, during the current term of President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto. Unlike disappearances \u201cpor particulares<\/em>\u201d (by individuals associated with organized crime), forced disappearances refer to an incident in which somebody disappears and there are signs of authorities\u2019 involvement. He shows me papers from the Attorney General. \u201cWith 183 people forcibly disappeared, Veracruz accounts for seventeen percent of forced disappearances. Tamaulipas is second with 173 forced disappearances, or sixteen percent since 2012, then comes Guerrero.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the obstacles to reporting in Veracruz is the state government\u2019s attempt to minimize this violence. In October 2014 at the World Trade Center in Boca del R\u00edo, Governor Duarte said<\/a> where once people talked about shootouts and murders in Veracruz, now they talk about convenience store robberies of Frutsis<\/a> and Pinguinos<\/a>, a type of drink and cupcake\u00a0. Duarte has never lived down the comments. Given official concern with the state\u2019s image, Zavaleta seems slightly anxious by the Duarte government\u2019s feeble response to his book. \u201cThey haven\u2019t said anything, absolutely nothing,\u201d he told me. \u201cIn the past they have attacked me on social media, and from fake email addresses, trying to undermine my professional work with outrageous stories about my personal life. That I arrange orgies, that I\u2019m a drug addict, that I\u2019m bisexual, that I\u2019m gay, or that I\u2019m effeminate. In anonymous emails I\u2019m accused of having affairs with my married female friends. With the book\u2019s publication I was expecting something from the government, but nothing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt leaves me a little unsettled.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long after we met in Xalapa at the end of July before Zavaleta began to receive threats provoked by the book\u2019s revelations. The threats reveal the cost of not staying silent, particularly about ties between government and business. Jos\u00e9 Abella, a businessman and owner of the newspaper El Buen Tono<\/em> from C\u00f3rdoba, about three hours south of Xalapa,physically threatened Zavaleta for exposing subsidies his newspaper received from Duarte\u2019s state government<\/a>. Governor Duarte grew up in C\u00f3rdoba. The Governor and Abella are pictured in photographs together<\/a>, smiling. Zavaleta responded to Abella with documents that proved El Buen Tono<\/em> was one of the state government\u2019s creditors. At presentations about the book, Zavaleta tells audiences, \u201cI spent about two lines in the book mentioning Abella.\u201d Even so, threats followed, and people started watching his house.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t taking Abella\u2019s threats very seriously on Friday, but on Saturday when he accused me of working with the Zetas, that\u2019s when I really started to get worried,\u201d he said on August 10, 2016 at the launch of his book in Mexico City. As the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generaci\u00f3n,<\/em>the rivals of the Zetas, currently dominate Veracruz, the association could be lethal for Zavaleta. \u201cI will not permit such allegations,\u201d said Zavaleta to audiences in Mexico City and Xalapa.<\/p>\n

Neither did Proceso<\/em>. The magazine assigned Zavaleta two bodyguards, a couple of middle-aged burly men with inquisitive eyes who traveled with the reporter between Veracruz and in Mexico City. Zavaleta spent hours filing complaints against Abella in state and federal jurisdictions because of the threats. His complaint to the Federal Prosecutor for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE \u2013 La Fiscal\u00eda Especial para la Atenci\u00f3n de Delitos cometidos contra de la Libertad de Expresi\u00f3n<\/em>) required traveling at least four and a half hours from Xalapa to Mexico City, followed by another four hours of interviews. And even then the procedure wasn\u2019t over. Zavaleta\u2019s complaint would also require a follow-up psychological exam, \u201cjust to make sure I\u2019m not paranoid. It\u2019s a big distraction from the work of reporting,\u201d he told me as we left the FEADLE offices in downtown Mexico City. At book presentations the bodyguards have stayed within close range.<\/p>\n

Nightclub singer and Veracruz native Paquita la del Barrio once sang, \u201cVeracruz is a little piece of the Republic that knows how to suffer and sing.\u201d In other words, despite tremendous suffering in the state, the people keep on with their business, like reporting the news. Zavaleta\u2019s book is filled with stories of suffering but also of survival, persistence, and resilience. His own story\u2014 from within the body count of dead journalist colleagues\u2014reflects these traits.<\/p>\n

After the 2015 murder of his coworker and friend Rub\u00e9n Espinosa, \u201cI had two options,\u201d Zavaleta said. \u201cOne, hide my head under the covers to cry, asking for a transfer to the sports section, or political or environmental reporting. Maybe tourism, I don\u2019t know. Or face what\u2019s going on saying, \u2018Here we are and I was here. Ya basta!<\/em> We\u2019ve had it up to here.\u2019 I have a vocation and there\u2019s a cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zavaleta\u2019s book narrates the impunity for murders of journalists in Duarte\u2019s Veracruz.Proceso<\/em> has not been the only news outlet in the state that has lost one or more of its reporters. Daily newspaper Notiver<\/em> in the Port of Veracruz is also on that unfortunate list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Days before beginning a slew of presentations about his book, Zavaleta stands with dozens of other journalists from Veracruz and Mexico City to commemorate one year since the murder of Proceso<\/em>\u2019s Espinosa. Nothing has happened in the case. \u201cThe authorities don\u2019t want to do anything, nor will they do anything,\u201d said Zavaleta.<\/p>\n

Zavaleta knew Espinosa for more than five years and worked with him on stories forProceso <\/em>for at least three. In February 2014, the magazine published his and Espinosa\u2019s first cover story, <\/em>an article about the ongoing security crisis in Veracruz.<\/em> Espinosa\u2019s cover photo now defines much of the murdered photojournalist\u2019s work. He unflatteringly captured the governor as a grimacing, portly state policeman wearing a baseball cap. Zavaleta devoted two chapters to telling Espinosa\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Every part of the profession has learned to grieve for its dead.\u00a0<\/span>Zavaleta sees the book as a way to remember Espinosa\u2019s work. \u201cEvery part of the profession has learned to grieve for its dead.\u00a0<\/span>I, for example, can talk to you about Rub\u00e9n. But then there\u2019s the last journalist murdered just a few weeks ago, Pedro Tamayo. My colleague Ignacio Carvajal is a reporter in Coatzacoalcos and he grieves for Pedro because they were both friends and had reported on mass graves together<\/a>. Here in Xalapa, the crime beat reporters mourn Victor Baez (murdered in 2012). In the Port of Veracruz the photojournalists grieve over El Mariachi<\/em>, Gabriel Hug\u00e9 (also murdered in 2012); the Notiver<\/em> journalists miss Milo Vela (Miguel \u00c1ngel L\u00f3pez Velasco, murdered with his wife and son, Misael in 2011). Still other journalists in the Port miss Misael, who was also a photojournalist.\u201d Zavaleta\u2019s point is unmistakable: in Veracruz every journalist mourns a dead journalist.<\/p>\n

\"No\u00e9<\/p>\n

No\u00e9 Zavaleta marches with a crowd of protesters in Xalapa on July 31, 2016 in remembrance of his colleague and friend, photojournalist Rub\u00e9n Espinosa, on the one-year anniversary of his murder in Mexico City. (Photo by Patrick Timmons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cOne of the things we have realized as journalists in Veracruz is that we are all vulnerable, we are all fragile. If they want to kill you, they are going to kill you. I don\u2019t want to tempt fate but I always ask \u2018Who\u2019s next?\u2019 The body count just has not stopped. So, you have to ask, who\u2019s next? It\u2019s provocative, cruel, and it might be rude but you have to ask, \u2018Who\u2019s next?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to be the next number,\u201d says Zavaleta to me and to audiences at presentations of his book in Mexico City and Xalapa. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be the number after that, either. I don\u2019t want to be any number at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republished, with permission, from NACLA<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted from Foreign Policy In Focus<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No\u00e9 Zavaleta holds up photographs of his murdered colleague, photojournalist Rub\u00e9n Espinosa, in Xalapa, on July 31, 2016. (Photo by Patrick Timmons) No\u00e9 Zavaleta is a brave Mexican journalist. He works\u2014or used to work\u2014in Veracruz. \u00a0In the last six years, seventeen journalists have been murdered and five have gone missing in the mountainous coastal state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":267493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-267492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}