Just like El Salvador, Mexico has its fair share of violence in the country. It has been rated time and again as one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Gangs and corrupt governments control the cities and most people live in poverty. The violence has since trickeled into the media and has begun to target journalists.
"Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2011 described Mexico as "one of the hemisphere's most dangerous countries" for the media. Since 2000, scores of journalists have been murdered. "Drug cartels and corrupt officials are implicated in most of the crimes of violence against journalists, which almost always go unpunished," RSF added."BBC World Profile
Veracruz has been in the limelight as of late because of the amount of reporters who have either been killed, kidnapped or threatened by the government or by gang members. Apparently the Mexican government has been doing nothing to investigate these issues. It becomes pretty obvious in these situations that the local authorities uninterest is most likely due to their involvement to some degree. The Latin American Herald reports
"Mexican authorities said at a forum that drug-trafficking gangs pay around 1.27 billion pesos (some $100 million) a month in bribes to municipal police officers nationwide"
It is really no wonder at that rate that local authorities would find no interest in looking into the dissapearance of a few journalists when the people who pay them are involved. Sergio Landa Rosado was kidnapped by unidentified men who claimed that an article he wrote about a murdered cab driver was the kind of information that might bring too much attention to it, reported the Committee to Protect Journalists. The CPJ have been urging Mexican authorities to investigate the kidnapping and help to find Landa and the people behind this. So far Mexico has been uncooperative.
"Veracruz has become the most dangerous state for journalists in Mexico, according to CPJ research. Last week, the national Mexican magazine Proceso reported that it has learned of a plot by officials in the government of Veracruz to harm journalist Jorge Carrasco, who has reported extensively on the murder of the magazine's correspondent in that state, Regina Martínez Pérez. At least eight journalists have been murdered since Gov. Javier Duarte took office in late 2010, and many more have fled--permanently or temporarily--because of threats from organized crime as well as from state government officials, according to CPJ research." CPJ
How are these foreign press agencies going to get Mexico to budge on this? It seems nearly impossible to make a change. The issues are repetitive and seem to go ignored time and again. There needs to be a serious crackdown on the authorities and how the country is run but who is going to be able to pull that off? And is it even possible for such an over haul to take place? It would most certainly take years to change the way Mexico is run so what is everyone to do until then?