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The following is from the IFEX COMMUNIQUE # 5-38,  25 September 1996

MEXICAN TV FREEING ITSELF FROM GOVERNMENT CONTROL, BUT MEDIA
STILL PRESSURED, SAYS IPI; RSF REPORTS ON THREATS TO JOURNALISTS

Television in Mexico is finally freeing itself of the reins of
government control, according to an article in the
August/September issue of the International Press Institute's
(IPI) "IPI Report". The article, part of the magazine's cover
feature on Latin America, focuses on a 16-minute video of the
massacre of 17 peasants by state police last summer in Aguas
Blancas, Guerrero state, which was broadcast nationwide in
February by the pro-government television network Televisa in an
unprecedented move. What was even more remarkable about the
broadcast was that immediately after the massacre, writes Shasta
Darlington, "national television obediently broadcast a doctored
video version of the events that state officials distributed to
back their claims" that the state police had been ambushed by the
peasants. The doctored version showed the bodies of the peasants
with machine guns in their arms - the real video showed them
being gunned down unarmed. Eight months after the ient, the
governor of Guerrero was forced to resign for complicity in the
attack.

"The press has been transforming itself over the years, becoming
more independent, but until the Aguas Blancas video it hadn't
reached the television," said Sergio Sarmiento of TV Azteca,
Televisa's only competitor. "That video is a symbol. For the
first time, television caused the fall of a governor." IPI says
the Aguas Blancas incident demonstrates "the importance of
videotape in shaping political events." Other bloody events have
been broadcast since then, such as riot police clubbing
protesting teachers in Mexico City - which led to the firing of
the police chief. There has been a role-reversal - the media now
have power over the authorities, and IPI says "more politicians
are courting the media as they prepare for congressional and
mayoral elections in 1997."

Sergio Aguayo, a media expert and political analyst who works
with the Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos, told IPI, "The
[Mexican] media was not originally created to inform; it was
created to protect interests and functioned like government
concessions that had to be continually renewed." According to the
"IPI Report", "rather than using outright censorship, the
government has employed economic pressures to control what was
printed and broadcast. The government doled out - or withheld -
radio concessions, newsprint, reporters' subsidies, advertising
and paid-for articles. It even controlled distribution."

Some journalists told IPI that things had changed, many others
disagreed, saying that "government controls, intimidation by
vested interests and self-censorship" are still pervasive. And it
seems that vocal independent newspapers can only survive in the
big cities. For example, widespread national and international
coverage of the uprising in Chiapas in 1994 helped to contain the
violence - but as soon as the foreign press departed, things
became difficult for the local press again. Leticia Hernandez,
editor of the Chiapas daily "Tapachula Expreso", said, "When the
fighting broke out, almost all of the 20-something newspapers in
Chiapas were writing about the Zapatistas. Now only two or three
of us are." Journalists in the area are pressured by "local
interest groups" for the most part, who send death threats or
beat up reporters. According to Francisco Junco, a researcher for
the National Communications Center, IPI says, "The new repression
is partly a backlash to the media reform process," or, in other
words, "greater press freedom has led to retaliations."

A number of cases of attacks on journalists in Mexico are
documented in the September issue (No. 8) of the Reporters sans
frontieres (RSF) "Newsletter". Among the attacks is the case of
Cuauhtemoc Ornelas Campos, managing editor of the magazine
"Adelante" in Torreon, who has been missing since October 1995.
Right before he disappeared, RSF says the mayor talked to him
about "his reports on alleged ties between the town's police and
drug traffickers." Ominously, RSF notes that another journalist,
Dante Espartaco Cotes, was murdered in 1995 after "a similar
investigation." Other journalists have been beaten up, shot at
and threatened for their reporting. "This climate of violence has
forced some journalists to agree to protection from bodyguards
appointed by the police," says RSF. This despite the fact that
many of the threats appear to be coming from the authorities. In
addition, RSF reports that a National Human Rights Committee has
been set up "to deal with complaints by journalists who are
attacked - although its powers are restricted to making
`recommendations.'"

As recently as 17 September, Razhy Gonzalez Rodriguez, director
of the Oaxaca-based regional weekly magazine "Contrapunto", was
kidnapped for two days in Oaxaca, reports the Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ), RSF and the International Agency of
the Indigenous Press (AIPIN). According to CPJ, Gonzalez founded
"Contrapunto" earlier this year. He used to be the Chiapas
correspondent for the Oaxaca-based newspaper "Noticias" and CPJ
says he is known for his reporting on the Zapatistas in Chiapas
and more recently for reporting on the newly-emerged rebel
Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) in Oaxaca. RSF says Gonzalez
suspects he was abducted by the police.

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The IFEX "Communique" is published weekly in English, French and
Spanish by the IFEX Clearing House, Toronto. The facility is
operated by the Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists (CCPJ)
in partnership with the member organizations of the International
Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX). Material for the
"Communique" may be submitted to the CCPJ, 490 Adelaide Street
West, Suite 205, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1T2, CANADA; E-mail:
ifex@web.net; Tel: (1-416) 703-1638; or Fax: (1-416) 703-7034.
Editor: Kristina Stockwood. Subscriptions are available by e-mail
and surface mail. The views expressed in the "Communique" are the
responsibility of the sources to which they are attributed.

___________________________________________________
Bruce Girard
Pulsar - AMARC
Email: bgirard@pulsar.org.ec
http://www.web.net/amarc/pulsar.html
Tel: +593-2-525521    Fax: +593-542818
Av. America 3584, Casilla 17-08-8489, Quito, Ecuador