After one of its photographers was killed by gunmen Thursday, Sept. 16, the Mexican newspaper Diario de Juárez, in an unprecedented move, published an extensive editorial on Sunday, Sept. 19, asking for a truce with drug cartels that would end the violence and, above all, stop the attacks against journalists in Mexico, reported CNN and the Associated Press. Newspaper editors also clarified that the call for peace does not mean the newspaper is giving up its journalistic work.
The editorial “What do you want from us?” is signed by the newsroom and, beyond criticizing the strategies of the war on drug trafficking that President Felipe Calderón declared at the end of 2006 and recognizing that the de facto authorities in Ciudad Juárez are drug dealers, the editorial directly asks the bands of organized crime "what it is they want" from the media.
“We don't want any more deaths. We don't want anymore wounded nor anymore intimidation. It is impossible to do our job under these conditions. Tell us, then, what it is you want from us as the media," the editorial said, as was reported by the news agency EFE.
In an interview with Radio W, the assistant editor of the newspaper, Pedro Torres, said that the truce does not mean the newspaper has totally given in to organized crime. “We are going to take measures, not to give in...but we need to make sure this doesn't happen to us again," he said.
In its editorial on Sunday, the newspaper demanded no more attacks on its journalists or buildings and said that "this is not surrender...Instead it is a respite to those who have imposed the force of its law in this city, provided they respect the lives of those who are dedicated to the craft of reporting."
Photographer Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco is the second journalist from the Diario de Juárez in less than two years to be killed because of the growing drug trafficking violence, which has left more than 28,000 people dead since 2006 in Mexico. Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the United States, is the epicenter of the violence. Even insurance companies refuse to cover reporters who work in this city.
See here a video of the funeral of the photographer who was killed.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
