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By Jonathan Clark This story was originally published in the Mexico edition of The Miami Herald on Dec. 11, 2004. OAXACA - Armed invaders in ski masks, a decades-old land dispute, an acrimonious political campaign and a dead body found in a warehouse under mysterious circumstances. All are elements of an increasingly bitter feud here between an outspoken newspaper and a state government controlled for the past 70-plus years by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. According to the opposition daily Noticias, this is the story of a volatile and corrupt ex-governor and his successor, both intent on extracting revenge against their harshest critic. In the process, the paper says, its constitutional right to freedom of expression has come under attack. For its part, the governor's office says that the dispute is nothing more than an agrarian land dispute that a resentful opponent has tried to turn into a political issue. But in the words of a veteran journalist at a rival newspaper, the affair is better characterized as a "lover's quarrel" that took an unintended turn for the worse with the death of a local teen. The most recent developments in the case began on the afternoon of Nov. 28, when 30 to 40 men wearing ski masks and carrying rifles and clubs invaded Noticias' warehouse in the town of Santa Cruz Amilpas, just outside the capital. After chasing out the few employees on hand, the group took possession of the building. Then, sometime in the early hours of the following day, the occupiers abandoned the premises. Later that morning, local police received a telephone tip that shots had been fired at the warehouse. When they arrived on the scene, men reportedly identifying themselves as employees of Noticias told them it had been a false alarm. But when authorities received another tip shortly thereafter that there was a dead body in the warehouse, state police investigators were dispatched to the scene. After a search of the building, they discovered the body of 19-year-old Juan Mendez hidden underneath overturned shelving. Mendez had been shot with a high-caliber rifle, the bullet entering from his side and piercing an aorta. The victim was unknown to Noticias and the only circumstance of his death that police have yet confirmed is that he was killed sometime between 4 and 5 a.m. ACCUSATIONS In their testimonies to police, two Noticias employees who witnessed the Nov. 28 invasion said that despite the masks, they had been able to identify five of the invaders, including the PRI mayor-elect of Santa Cruz Amilpas, Miguel Garcia; his deputy Augustin Morales, better known as "El Mechudo," or "Curly Locks;" and Roman Cruz, a high-ranking member of the local CNOP - a labor union affiliated with the PRI. According to officials at Noticias, the order for the invasion came directly from the governor's office, at that time occupied by the fiery Jose Murat. "Murat took this action because of our critical attitude toward the government," deputy editor Genaro Altamirano said. "Furthermore, he had been telling people in certain circles that he was going to ruin us. So they took the warehouse because that's where we store all our paper and ink, and of course what (Murat) wanted was to stop us from publishing." Hector Ramirez, press director for the governor's office, says the allegations are untrue. "This is an agrarian conflict that dates back to 1945 when the president promised land to the campesinos," he said. "It has absolutely nothing to do with us." The men who took the warehouse purported to be local comuneros, or commune-dwellers, who were acting on a decades-old promise to the land where the Noticias warehouse sits - land that Ramirez says was bought by the newspaper in a "shady" real estate deal in 1997. But officials at Noticas say that they have documents from the local comunero group asserting that it played no part in the Nov. 28 appropriation of the warehouse. Furthermore, Noticias says that some of the PRI-affiliated men identified by eyewitnesses had previously tried to ingratiate themselves with the comuneros to convince them to take the property. THE BODY Citing an ongoing investigation, officials at the state Attorney General's Office declined to comment on the warehouse invasion or the death of Juan Mendez. However, others say that Mendez was merely a pawn in the dispute, contracted for 300 pesos to watch over a property that he knew nothing about. "This kid, Mendez, he didn't have anything to do with the comuneros or with the town," Altamirano said. "What we believe is that they (the invaders) purposely left the cadaver in an attempt to incriminate us." According to the boy's father, Alfredo Mendez, on Nov. 28 Juan Mendez and a group of friends were approached by an unknown man who asked them if they would like to make some money by "watching over a house." Mendez says that Juan's friends told him that at approximately 1 a.m. on Monday, they were brought to the warehouse in Santa Cruz Amilpas, given food and told to stand guard over the property after the initial group of occupiers left. Then at approximately 4 a.m., four or five trucks filled with men pulled into the property and began firing shots. The friends ran from the building, but Juan apparently took a wrong turn and ran into a storage area, where he became pinned beneath falling shelving. It was in this position that he was struck by the fatal shot, authorities say. Now, sources close to the investigation say that authorities are considering the possibility that the armed group that chased out the teens and inadvertently shot Juan Mendez was hired by Noticias to retake the property from men whom they believed to be operatives of the PRI and CNOP. "He was a good boy and they took advantage of him," Alfredo Mendez said of his son. "We're poor people and we don't have many resources, but we want to see justice. We want the people who contracted my son to be held accountable for taking advantage of him this way. But what can we do? It's all political now so who can say if they'll do anything." OLD FRIENDS, BITTER ENEMIES People here say that the recent events at Santa Cruz Amilpas constitute the latest chapter a growing feud between two old friends and ex-business associates: Murat and the president of Noticias' ownership group, Ericel Gomez Nucamendi. According to Noticias' editor-in-chief Ismael Sanmartin, the split between the two began when Gomez Nucamendi refused an offer from his friend Murat to buy a 50 percent share of the newspaper after the latter was elected governor in 1998. Murat was incensed at the rebuff, Sanmartin said. The governor, who vigorously opposed transparency laws during his term and who was known to be easily riled by press criticism, had previously managed to buy an interest in the local daily Tiempo through an intermediary, his brother-in-law Jorge Hinosa. The Murat-Noticias split was further exacerbated, Sanmartin said, during the 2001 mayoral elections in the capital when the paper gave favorable coverage to the opposition candidate, disgruntled PRI member and eventual winner for the opposition Convergence party, Gabino Cue. The acrimony grew as Noticias began to attack the Murat administration for alleged corruption. Then in March, Noticias, along with several Mexico City papers, began suggesting that Murat had faked a high-profile assassination attempt against himself - an allegation that was later supported by a federal investigation. With Murat's term set to end Nov. 30, Noticias fervently backed Cue in his campaign for the governorship against Murat's hand-picked successor and eventual winner of the Aug. 1 elections, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. In retaliation, the PRI withdrew all campaign ads from the paper - a move that cost the paper 20,000 pesos in anticipated revenue. Now, because of the support for Cue, officials at Noticias say the newspaper has earned a new vengeful enemy in the governor's office - Ulises Ruiz. On Dec. 1, the same day that Ruiz was being sworn in as Murat's successor, a second group of invaders took possession of Noticias' Santa Cruz Amilpas site, which, since the discovery of the body of Juan Mendez, had been guarded as a crime scene by state police. "The police just let these guys walk right in," Altamirano said. "This was another action by the governor, who was aided by the Attorney General, who made sure the police didn't interfere." And while the second occupying group - a different assemblage than the first invaders - identifies itself as local comuneros, Altamirano says they were escorted to the site by two known functionaries at the CNOP. The new group still occupies the property - though not the warehouses - and has begun building makeshift living quarters on the grounds. FREE SPEECH OR POLITICAL SPAT? Noticias has filed complaints with both the National Commission of Human Rights and the federal Interior Secretariat, alleging that the occupations of its warehouse property were politically motivated attacks on the newspaper's right to publish. On Thursday, the paper organized a support march through the capital, terminating with a round of speeches at the city's Zocalo square. Auspiciously absent from the array of Noticias officials and opposition politicians who took the podium were members of other media outlets in the city. In fact, the recent events have received little coverage in the local press, other than in Noticias itself. "We see this as a political disagreement between two private parties, not as a free speech issue," said an editor at a local daily who asked to remain anonymous. "So we're trying to stay out of it." But Noticias sees it differently. "Unfortunately, the majority of papers here submit to the wishes of the government. They don't criticize and they don't question," Altamirano said. Admittedly, some members of the local press still harbor great fear of the volatile ex-Governor Murat. Reporters here tell of being subjected to threatening, obscenity-filled telephone tirades from Murat after having written critically of him. "Let me tell you," said one member of the local media corps, "the press here is very afraid of Jose Murat." |