"The murder of Ruben Espinosa is a political and legal problem. Was Governor Durante Involved?

Borderland Beat by DD

photo by Ruben Espinoza on cover of Proceso

Consider yourself an enemy of the people" government spokesman for Governor Duarte of
Veracruz said to Ruben Espinosa to prevent his entry to a press conference Governor Duarte was giving.

That happened after the publication of a now-famous cover of Proceso magazine that  Duarte
appears in profile with a particularly big belly and his face emanating a disturbing contempt,
wearing a police cap.  When the magazine, with the headline, “Veracruz, a Lawless State”, was
published, Duarte sent his minions out across the state ordered it be bought in bulk so that no one else could see it. 

But first things first:

LEGAL

On Friday, July 31, in the Mexico City colonia of Narvate, Ruben Espinosa's body was found in the apartment of a friend, along with the bodies of 4 women.   At least 2 and possibly 3 of the women were raped..  One of the women was Nadia Vera,  who had attended a university in Veracruz and had been a political activist seeking  justice for assassinated  journalist in Mexico.  More info on who the women were can be found in a story published on BB by Otis .
As reported by Lucio on BB street security cameras had captured images of the suspected perpetrators leaving the apartment building at about 3:00PM Friday afternoon, one of them carrying a suitcase on wheels which investigators assume contained property stolen from the apartment.  Investigators quickly identified one of the culprits through fingerprint analysis and arrested Pacheco Gutiérrez, who had previously served 10 years in prison for rape and robbery

Prosecutors claim he confessed to being at the scene, but denied he took part in the 5 murders.

The PGJDF (the Attorney General Office in DF) said on Sunday, 2 days after the crime, that it was clear it was simply a case of robbery, rape, and murder and his office would thoroughly investigate it.

POLITICAL

Before giving the face to to face with the press, Rios Garza, of PGJDF had met privately in their offices with the editor of the weekly Proceso, Rafael Rodríguez Castañeda; the publisher of the agency Cuartoscuro, Pedro Valtierra; director of the Network of Journalists on Foot, Daniela Pastrana; the director of the international organization Article 19, Dario Ramirez, and representatives of International PEN association.There, journalists and activists asked the prosecutor promptly to classify it as crime against journalists 

That would make it a federal crime and it would be turned over to the federal PGR.    The state prosecutor told them that it could not be a crime against journalist because the threats that had been made against him were made in Veracruz, not in Mexico City,  and that at the time of his murder he was not a journalist - he was unemployed.

The Federal District Attorney General has offered information that doesn’t change the events but does distort their perception. They insisted that the victims had had a prolonged party and that entry through the apartment door was not forced. They also emphasized the importance of
performing a toxicological screen on the victims’ bodies. Such a presentation suggests a party
that got out of control. The truth is that the murderers arrived the day after the night in question,
and, if they entered through the door, they could have done so under a variety of subterfuges.
Whatever,  the victims may have been drunk but that does not justify their deaths.   

When there is government involvement in a crime, It is a very common tactic of the police to demonize or place the blame for the killing of innocents on the innocents themselves.  The prosecutor here was very quick to jump to the conclusion that  Ruben and the 4 women killed with him were having a wild party with the killers and the party that got of hand.

 
Robbery was also mentioned as a possible motive. Cell phones were missing from the scene and cash had been removed from their wallets. In footage that captured the killers on video, one of them is carrying a suitcase.  What could young people who lived at a subsistence level have of value in their apartment that would justify murdering all of them?

And the political angle? In an unforgivable manner, the special federal attorney’s office charged
with attending to crimes against journalists has not taken on the case. 

Espinosa had received threats, attacked and beaten by agents of the Durante govt., was being followed and photographed by govt.agents and had gone public on social media with all that.   With the help of the NGO Article 19, he sought refuge in the Federal District.  Article  19 had already helped relocate over 70 journalist from all across Mexico to Mexico City whose work had put them in danger.  It was thought that Mexico City was a safe haven because of less violence than many other parts of the country and the journalists would be safer mingling with the other 20 million people living there.  .

Vera also had been a victim of attacks and threats and she had retreated to Mexico City for safety reasons before Ruben self-exiled himself there.  She had made statements that if anything happened to her, Durante would be responsible.
 
The evidence so far that the killings were political and not just everyday street crimes is circumstantial up to this point, but the evidence is certainly sufficient to justify the federal intervention in the investigation through the new section in the PGR that is charged with handling crimes against journalist.  (though since its creation in 2012 it has not prosecuted a single murder case of the more than 70 that have occurred).    Wikipedia has a list of murdered and disappeared journalist in Mexico

Their torture prior to being shot in the nape of the neck is a sign of vengeance. Organized crime
has unleashed a real vocabulary of violence; the style of the killings follows a precise code. We
are not facing a simple robbery; in any case, the theft results from the principal crime, not a motive for it  (a journalist’s telephone is worth more for its schedule and contacts, for example, than for its price on the black market).

Universal has reported that Reporters without Borders says there have been 88 cases of murdered journalist since 2000 putting Mexico in 148th place out of 180 countries meaning that in 147 countries, journalists find safer conditions than they do in Mexico for practicing their profession.

in Veracruz there are seventeen unsolved murders of journalists –according to the organization Article 19—as well as proofs of the harassment against Rubén and Nadia. These facts shine a spotlight on his government.
 

And what is Governor Duarte’s responsibility?   First a little background on Javier Duarte.

Duarte was the PRI candidate for Governor of the State of Veracruz in 2010. 

THE ELECTION
When voting closed on July 2, 2010 Duarte de Ochoa was originally declared winner in the 3 person race with 50% of the vote, 16% more than his nearest competitor.  The other parties demanded a recount based on fraud.  After a recount the authorities said he still won, but by only 2%.  


BODIES IN BOCA RIO;  
In September 2011, 35 bodies were found tortured and murdered in two abandoned trucks in the town of Boca del Rio, Veracruz outside a building where governor Duarte de Ochoa was conducting a meeting

 25 million pesos in state money transported in suitcases for unknown purposes. 
 In January 2012, federal police arrested 2 men at the Toluca airport who were carrying nearly 2 million dollars (US) and traveling on a Veracruz state plane who could not give the origin or destination of the plane and could not give a purpose of the money. 
Finance Secretary Tomas Ruiz Gonzalez claimed that in spite of the odd mode of transportation, the money was legal and intended to pay for the advertisement of local festivals.  Shortly thereafter the State Treasurer resigned.  The federal government announced that their investigation determined the money was legal and in June 2015, returned all of it (with interest) to the State of Veracruz.

Journalist killings
  As of 1 August 2015, twelve journalists and crime reporters have been killed during the tenure of Duarte de Ochoa and three more have gone missing   Most of them have gone unpunished.  .The most notorious case was that of journalist Regina Martínez Pérez, widely known for her reporting on Veracruz state corruption and its links to drug cartels, who was found strangled to death in her apartment on 28 April 2012. State officials claimed her murder was unrelated to the regular threats of violence she was receiving for her reporting, but was rather a crime of passion following a robbery.  

Due to the unprecedented number of journalist killings during Duarte de Ochoa's term as governor, the international association Reporters Without Borders named the state of Veracruz one of the ten most dangerous places in the world in which to practice journalism.

The 15 murders and disappearances have occurred under diverse circumstances. What’s undeniable is that nothing has been done to resolve them satisfactorily nor to stop their continued occurrence. Moreover, the Veracruz administration has accosted the
independent press; the local Congress approved the “Duarte Law” to penalize with one to four
years in prison anyone who disturbs the public order by providing information on social networks about violence (only the Supreme Court prevented this absurdity from becoming law).

It would be an understatement to say that Ruben did not have a good working relationship with the Durante government.  

The photojournalist Ruben Espinosa was the most fervent defenders of press freedom in Veracruz and one of those who demanded the investigation of the murders of journalists in that state.

It would seem that a photo journalist would not pose the same kind of threat to a public official than a print reporter/journalist but a good photographer can capture a moment on film that words could never accurately describe.  

In Sept. 2013, Ruben was covering a scene where the state police were forcibly and violently removing some protesting teachers from the Plaza de Lerdo in the state capitol.  It is a public plaza.  .  

The State Police beat him and focibly and violently took the memory card from his camera.  Although Ruben Espinosa, along with other reporters, filed a criminal complaint, the government of Javier Duarte sought dialogue with him, offering money to withdraw his complaint. Espinosa refused the offer.  No action was taken on his complaint.

But he seems to have gotten onto Durante's enemies list for photos which captured personality traits that Durante did not like being made public.  What outraged  Duarte, according to the author of the picture, for the ruler the affront was the close-up that also shows a morbid obesity for  which Durante has always felt insecure and the target  of the mockery from  insiders and outsiders.

Lydia Cacho, in a Aristegui Noticia article said that It seems trivial or ridiculous  that many rulers personally hold grudges against  certain journalists (men or women) that show some of their undeniable unflattering  personality traits that they  try to hide and that generates insecurity. "Not only do we talk about the body structure, also of gestures that betray all people even if they try to hide them - clenched fist, clenched jaw, etc."

Ruben said that the spokesman had said that the governor also angered that other famous Cuartoscuro close-up, in which Duarte eyes seem to sprout like a choleric  gargoyle in thrusting his body against journalists and those that questioned him.   He is showing his teeth in rage attack like a rabid attack..

Again and again  the Governors security people  warned Ruben should no longer live in Veracruz, and he was on the black list of the enemies.  

In May and June he realized that he was being followed by 3 men with close cropped hair and they were photographing him in front of his house, in front of his work place, and when he was working in the field. 

Lydia Vera, one of the women murdered along with Ruben and who was his girlfriend was a member of the Xalapa Student Assembly. She was one of the people assaulted by police from the Secretariat of Public Security in Veracruz during the parade on November 20, 2012, when she protested against the presidential elections and the PRI, as well as for the journalists killed. It is certain that her participation in the Rompeviento TV’s special report, Veracruz: the Forgotten Grave, was fundamental.  In the TV report, Vera said;

"We start to really worry because the disappearance rate started to rise after 2010 when Javier
Duarte became governor. Violence started to spread, then, yes, we start to worry because we
begin to become the product that they need. Here the product may be that, as woman, they grab you for trafficking, or as a student, they grab you for ‘contract killing' as colleagues would say. Or it may be that the problem is all of us who obstruct them, both the government and drug traffickers.
 
"So we're between two fronts: illegal and legal repression. Because drug traffickers govern in this state, drug traffickers are ruling. The Zetas literally have anything and everything in this
manipulated state."

Vera was threatened and harrassed by the police for activist work seeking justice for murdered journalist.

Durante has adopted some of the tactics used by the drug cartels such as  "plato or plomo".  
Animal Politico reported in a story that Ruben said in an interview that in his opinion, 98 percent of the press in Veracruz is bought.

To ingratiate himself with the media, Duarte raffled off cars (though a journalist colleague of Ruben could not collect his because he had been killed).  " I gave to you, now you have to serve me, "

"in Duarte's Veracruz, the press are invited to breakfasts, have cars screens and iPads are raffled to them and are given money in exchange for their complicity."  Durante doesn't need to add the threat of violence along with gifts.  (although recently he told journalist "Behave yourselves", implying that the messengers are responsible for what executioners effect.  This was one day before the body of another journalist was discovered.)

Rubens own death points out, like a finishing touch to what has been already announced by the 12 journalists killed before him under the government of the same Javier Duarte, "...and if they didn't serve him,  they are persecuted, harassed and killed."

By this mechanism, they co-opt you or eliminate you.   through threats or privileges, it diminishes the possible support of a local professional group that would prefer to consider what is occurring is normal so as to not put itself at risk. There is also the lack of response by the Mexican state, which has finished building a space of impunity and offers it as a guarantee of action for perpetrators to act freely and without fear that anything will happen to them.

The authorities may refuse to admit it, but the death of photojournalist Ruben Espinosa, and
eighty-seven other deaths of journalists in Mexico that have not been cleared up are incontestable evidence of it.  In a report given to the second Standing Committee in the Senate and reported by Victor Ballinas in La Jornada , researchers from the University of the Americas in Puebla stated that Mexico—measured with 59 countries—occupies the penultimate place for countries with the highest levels of impunity in the world.

On a global scale Eastern European countries had the lowest levels of impunity, with Croatia in
first place. He also stated that the study’s analysis of Latin America showed that Mexico,
Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador are the countries with the worst levels of
impunity; [moreover,] they also show a direct correlation with corruption.

 Mexico has four judges for every 100 000 inhabitants, when the international average is 17,
adding that:  Countries with the lowest levels of impunity have 45 judges for every 100,000
inhabitants. 

The Law to Protect Journalist and Activist that was passed in 2012 was supposed to provide a mechanism for their protection.  Here is how that "mechanism" has worked so far.

Panic buttons with no connection, emergency telephones that no one answers, police patrols that don’t happen, security cameras that take months to be installed, non-existent follow-up on
investigations… this is how the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and
Journalists ['Mechanism'] “functions”.

The flaws in this program—created in June 2012, in theory, to protect journalists and activists
whose work put them at risk—were exposed through [the effort of] hundreds of civic and
international organizations that conducted an assessment of the operation.

Animal Political reported one of the most common protective measures is providing the individual with a panic button. This occurred in 13 of the 59 cases that were investigated. In all of them, the button failed to work.  In reality it functions like a placebo, since the Human Rights defenders and journalists have them, but when they have tried to use them, they don’t work in the majority of cases.”

 Emergency telephones were another protective measure given in 22 monitored cases. In 14 of
those case, phone calls were placed to the emergency numbers, but no one answered on any of the lines.

The installation of closed-circuit cameras and emergency locks were provided in 17 cases, but in 11 of those, the devices were installed with delays of 1 to 6 months.

Ruben Espinosa did not avail himself of any of the mechanisms provided to the law intended to protect him.  He did not trust the government after his 2013 episode covering the teachers protests.  And probably more importantly he knew the history of what happened to journalist that bucked the system. 

Reporters without Borders says there have been 88 journalist murders since 2000 putting Mexico in 148th place out of 180 countries meaning that in 147 countries, journalists find safer conditions than they do in Mexico for practicing their profession.

Ruben would also have been aware that there have been 15 such murders since Durante took office.  Up until June, there had been 6 this year.  (With his death on July 31, that makes one journalist murder a month.)

After continued harassment, beatings, and a confrontation with a man with a gun, and the surveillance he knew he was under, he decided to go into self -exile in Mexico City which had traditionally been a safe haven for journalist.  But the City of Hope didn't save him. 

He was not the first journalist exiled from that entity; before him another 30 had fled But he didn't exactly stay under the radar.

He contacted the NGO Article 19 and gave them his story, he did interviews on national and internation media.  Article 19 issued an alert to the Govt.

He also contacted Lydia Cacho at Proceso to seek her advice.  She has lived with threats and harassment for years. 

A couple of weeks I received a call from a young colleague. Ruben had asked me how many years managing fear, learn how to process an endless amount of death threats, some veiled and others clear and direct.

For this young photo reporter, correspondent graphic news agency Cuartoscuro and Proceso magazine, insomnia, lack of appetite, depression I always wanted to call sadness for not invoke his hard daily presence, they were enemies that you  have to get used to live with.

I recommended a therapist specializing in PTSD, the syndrome becomes collateral damage of the work of journalists and defenders of human rights professionally.

Post-traumatic stress is that dark passenger who sits on the lives of those who live or snapshots systematic intense forms of violence and threatening the physical safety and emotional health of the victim

In a Proceso story she said Ruben said that the spokesman had said that the governor also angered that other famous Cuartoscuro close-up, in which Duarte eyes seem to sprout like an angry gargoyle in fanning the body against journalists and those they questioned him He is showing the teeth in rage attack.

Again and again they warned that Reuben was no longer living in Veracruz, who was blacklisted from enemies.

"Ruben decided not to give up despite the harsh and real death threats he had received over the years to do a good job in Veracruz, everything is documented.  He was planning to return to Veracruz.

"It makes us wonder is it really  worth the risk to unveil one more outrage in a country of unworthy rulers? Just to answer that is always pays to tell the truth, indeed, work against ignominy, trying to build a country worth living, grow, love.

Cacho shared a moment when she was in a solidarity march after Rubens death;
"I can hear the voice of Ruben and I heard so many and so many other colleagues humming in a solidarity march side by side: "you cannot kill the truth by killing journalist"..

What has happened in Veracruz since the murders  of the Espinoza and Vera?

His death has captured the attention of the international press around the world.  but what is happening back home.

The University Struggle Committee, which brings together students from the Universidad de Veracruzana, Faculty of Humanities and Social and environmental activists, reported that after the murder of activist Nadia Vera Process and photojournalist Ruben Espinosa, the police harassment and Civil Force in the state of Veracruz increased.  In a statement, they regretted that after protests by social groups of  the treacherous murder in the Narvarte colony that patrols of Civil Force and the Ministry of Public Security have returned to haunt the university campuses, as well as the homes of more visible activists.

University Struggle Committee added that the murders of Ruben Espinosa Vera and Nadia precede a cluster of arbitrariness, intimidation and threats by the government apparatus of Javier Duarte:  'It is the bread and butter for many of us, we have been kidnapped, stroll, threatened, arrested, severely beaten by members of the security forces. We have felt the grip of the police in the neck, electric shock batons, boot into our bodies, the machete, the hits, the siege of monitoring and threats, we saw our names and faces on the blacklists SSP '.University Struggle Committee hold responsible  the government of Javier Duarte, and the Secretary of Public Security of Veracruz, Arturo Bermudez Zurita. 

In the words of Ruben Espinoza :

"It's sad to think of Veracruz, there are no words to say how bad that state is ... Death chose  Veracruz, death decided to live there."