Micmag: How is it to be a journalist in a drug trafficking area on a daily basis?

L.C.: Back to the 80’s and the 90’s, the city went through moments of real economical peak, the drug traffickers did many investments and obtained all kinds of businesses. The crimes didn’t make a big impact on the society, some people would disappear and nobody would hear from them again. It begun to change after Amado Carrillo’s death, as crimes of a great impact begun. But it was only in 2008 when the real war for seizing control of his position started. In 2000, the complicity between the trafficking groups and the authority became more obvious. Just imagine that my agenda had names of majors on it that are now either in jail, dead, disappeared or under a search warrant. The big deal here is that we don’t know for sure who our enemy is. That is what makes the difference between us and war reporters. Who is the bad guy? We don’t know, the line between the authority and the criminals is almost invisible due to the high level of corruption in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

 Micmag: Did you get the chance to come near those gangs? Were you ever threatened? What about your colleagues?

L.C.S.: On the 3^rd of August, after publishing a front page article entitled “They were getting protection directly from the Federal Ministerial Police”, the newspaper received a warning call and my superiors decided to take me off the coverage of police information. While this bloody impunity keeps on prevailing, the threat will always exists for all the reporters in Mexico. Until they catch the criminals that killed our colleagues and tell us why they did so, we won’t stop feeling threatened. Unfortunately, the reality is that we have neither the political will, nor the capacity to investigate from any police corporations in Mexico in order to throw light on those violent facts.

Micmag: Do we know how many gangs there are in the whole country: the most violent areas? Wasn’t this phenomenon previously located on the north border?

L.C.S.: The Office of the General Prosecutor (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR) listed seven Mexican cartels: Juarez Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Tijuana Cartel, Colima Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel, Milenio Cartel and Oaxaca Cartel. Recently, The Michoacan Family joined the active cartels, such as New Juarez, the Knights Templar, Gente Nueva (New people) and Mata Zetas, others groups that work for the bigger ones previously mentioned. The violence phenomenon was more visible in the Border States for its obvious geographic location. Juarez, Tijuana and Laredo, are the ports with major cross-border economical movement. They allow drug trafficking from a small to a big scale, and they also have hundreds of kilometers of United States border without any police surveillance. That is the reason why those are the most attractive cities: everybody is fighting for them. There also are States, such as Tamaulipas, Michoacán, Durango, Zacatecas, Veracruz, Chiapas or Guerrero, where the presence of those groups spread out. But the difference with Juarez o Chihuahua is that journalism there got censored by the fear. This is a reality. I recently talked with a colleague from Veracruz, and I was aghast at what she told me. They are so afraid that they do not publish, and that whatever they do publish is entirely censored. I think that those colleagues of ours, who practice real journalism in such places, are true heroes. While we are so comfortable, they live in true hell. We have to be supportive and demand their Local and State governments to give us the necessary guarantees for us to do our job. Our Mexico is in great danger because it is surrounded by corruption, and silence the journalists could cost us the pretence democracy in which we live nowadays.

 Micmag: How many journalists were murdered?

L.C.S.: I don’t have the exact number, but I can tell you that a recent publication mentioned that under Felipe Calderon’s Government, 53 journalists were murdered, and 11 went missing. This administration will be remembered as the one that made Mexico the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism, even more dangerous than Iraq. 94 communicators were either victimized or disappeared in less than a decade under the National Action Party’s Administration (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN).

 Micmag: Here in Europe it is said that drug trafficking is related to the power of the Federal District (DF) and the Mexican Government, what is your opinion on that?

 L.C.S.: Drug trafficking is related to all Governments, either Local, State or Federal government, by corruption. Mexico suffers from big issues that are connected to the corruption of the political parties holding the power in our country.

 Micmag: What about sending the Army in areas such as Ciudad Juarez? Would it be a good answer or would it make things even worst?

L.C.S.: Well, in Chihuahua we already experienced a bad Mexican Army’s intervention, when the Office of the General Prosecutor got militarized during the administration of Ernesto Zedillo and when the National Action Party’s member Antonio Lozano Garcia was heading for dependency.

By that time, Amado Carrillo’s cartel was very powerful, and even if many noteworthy actions were taken, such as confiscating tons of cocaine from this group, the great corruption between military leaders protecting “El Señor de los Cielos” (Lord of the Skies) was also revealed.

 Micmag: Given the failure of the fight and the financial and human cost, is there anybody asking for drug legalization in Mexico?

L.C.S.: I personally think that Mexico is not in good condition enough to face this process just yet.

 Micmag: How do the artists react to this war? Do they dear talking openly? Are they afraid?

 L.C.S.: In Juarez, different groups of the civil society are making an effort to bring artists. Also, new local and state festivals were created and had a really positive response. Fear, yes, I think they come with fear, but they also come willing to stimulate the cross-borders not to fall into this black and deep hole in which we already fell because of a war that nobody asked for, and that didn’t bring positive results to anybody.

Bellow, photos of L.C. in Ciudad Juarez (Mexico)