‘They are guilty’: Countries supplying guns to Mexican journalists | Mexico

IT was on the verge of breaking the day when Mexican crime reporter Luis Vallejo received a call from a local police officer saying he had found a bag of human remains in the town of Salmanca where he lives.

Vallejojo ​​was accustomed to such calls: in recent years, Guanajuato, the surrounding area, has been stuck at an unprecedented level amidst the bloody battlefields between rival cartels.

And when he arrived at the scene, he found Israel Vazquez, a fellow reporter – and a lifelong friend of Vojo Lejo – suffocating in a pool of blood. Vazquez, 31, was shot 11 times by a drive-by attacker as he prepared to broadcast live on Facebook. Police found bullet casings from two guns: a 9mm and an A45 caliber.

Vazquez, the father of two little girls, died on November 9, becoming the third journalist to be shot in Mexico in 10 days – the world’s most dangerous country for media outside the war zone.

“Everything fell apart on me,” said the 32-year-old Vallejo, who was inspired by his friend to become a journalist.

A few days later, two people involved in the murder were arrested, and seven other local gang members were arrested. According to local news reports, authorities have also seized an arsenal of high-caliber weapons from around the world, including US-made semi-automatic rifles, Israeli and German assault rifles and improved semi-automatic shotguns from Turkey.

Since 2000, nearly three-quarters of the 119 journalists killed in Mexico have been killed by firearms, according to an investigation by the Cartel Project – and most of those weapons are imported.

“Almost all journalists in Mexico are killed by foreign weapons,” said Laura Angelina Borbola, a former federal lawyer in charge of investigating crimes against journalists. More than 90% of murders remain unsolved.

Investigated the flow of weapons into Mexico in an attempt to understand where guns are coming from in an international association of journalists coordinating for-profit Forbidden Stories.

Key findings include:

• Weapons manufactured in Europe and Israel were legally sold to the Mexican military – as well as to the U.S. military. Illegally traded guns at the border – probably used to punish human rights violations and gangland, according to declared military documents obtained by a non-governmental organization. NGO) Stop US Arms Mexico.

• Trade is booming, but European arms companies are sending millions of dollars worth of guns, parts and ammunition to the Mexican states with horrific human rights records.

• Multinational arms companies may violate European export laws as only a fraction of end users are being reported, according to an analysis of documents published in a new report A group of international NGOs.

• The combination of weak international rules and a culture of immunity in Mexico would make firearms used to commit crimes virtually impossible in their origins.

Booming business

In 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calder launched a military war on drugs, which was continued by successive presidents, and human rights abuses continued to rise. Violence has escalated since then: nearly 1,000,000 people have been killed, and thousands more have disappeared.

Mexico’s woes are a boon to the arms trade.

According to data from the U.S. International Trade Commission, about 28,465 weapons, mostly handguns, were legally sold to Mexico in 2019, but many more U.S. weapons cross the border, with some estimating that as many as 213,000 weapons make their way to Mexico illegally each year. . .

And between 2006 and 2018, European and Israeli companies exported more than 238,000 weapons to Mexico for use by state and local police. Stop U.S. in Mexico According to Mexican military documents obtained by Arms, more than half of the companies came from two companies called Beretta in Italy and Glock in Ria Stria.

Documents show that European weapons are regularly sold to states where security forces have a well-documented history of human rights violations and links to criminal groups such as Guerrero, where local police and soldiers were missing in 43 of the 43 forced 2014 trainee teachers. .

“In most cases where we have documented enforced disappearances, there has always been a collaboration between state authorities and organized crime – and there has always been an exchange of arms between the two companies,” said Erica Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s US director. Said Erica Guevara Rosas, the American director of the International.

Beretta and Glock did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Mexico, which sells relatively few weapons – such as the United Kingdom – has also seen an increase in exports. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), UK export licenses in Mexico increased from 58 in 2008 to 350 in 2017.

In early 2015, just weeks after 43 students were forcibly disappeared, the UK’s ambassador to Mexico told the Guardian: “In the long run we want to be a player in Mexico’s military procurement.”

Since then, Mexico has been listed as a “priority market” for arms exports to the UK.

While most licenses have been issued for large-scale military equipment, the UK has also allowed m 4 million small arms to Mexico. But the true value of arms deals may be higher, as there were three open export licenses that promoters say make tracking sales more difficult. An open export license, which lasts for about five years, allows for unlimited exports.

“Using this opaque mechanism, the government is better scrutinizing arms sales,” said Andrew Smith of CAAT.

A government spokesman said: “The UK runs the world’s most comprehensive export control regime.”

A distorted monopoly

In Mexico, the military controls the import and sale of all weapons to local and state police and private individuals. Police have sold more than 95% of European weapons to the military since 2006, classified as “military use” under Mexican law, which prohibits the sale of legal guns to civilians on paper.

In addition to the use of these weapons by the police, evidence suggests that some European weapons exploding in the Mexican market are also linked to the killing of journalists, human rights defenders and civilians, according to an analysis of military documents published in a new report by international NGOs, including Global Exchange..

According to prosecutor Borbola, Jose Armando Rodriguez Karen, who worked for El Diario de Ciudad Juarez, was shot dead in 2008 with an Italian pistol. In 2013, a Belgian weapon was used to fire on the northern state of Chihuahua, Jaime Guadalupe Gonzalez Dominguez.

The Mexican state of Veracruz, where most journalists have been killed since 2000, has regularly received weapons and ammunition from a number of European and Israeli companies.

U.S. Law enforcement officials said Governor Javier Duarte’s year was 2010-201. The many murders and disappearances in Veracruz during the administration of, including local journalists, would not have happened without any confusion between the cartel, politicians and the police.

The most targeted journalists are those who dare to investigate the relationship between corrupt officials and organized crime. The Mexico Violence Resource Project estimates that about half of all threats against journalists come from state actors such as the police and the mayor, compared to%% of criminal groups.

Despite this, the stop U.S. in Mexico when it comes to international arms manufacturers selling to states with long-term records of mental rights violations. According to John Lindsay-Poland, director of the Arms, the matter is unclear.

“They clearly know that weapons are going to states like Guerrero and Veracruz and Tamaulipus and Chihuahua, which have a long, well-documented history of corruption and human rights abuses and emancipation.” “In our view, they’re guilty.”

Evidence suggests that a significant number of military-grade European weapons fell into the hands of the cartels, according to an analysis of Forbidden Stories’ open-source photos.

Security guards working for D’Masso López Serrano, the son of a senior lieutenant in the Simana cartel, who ordered the murder of journalist Javier Valdez in 2017, were photographed carrying a German-made machine gun, according to Mexican prosecutors. According to disclaimed documents, the same model has been sold to police in more than half of the 32 states, including Sinaloa.

Other cartels have also acquired military-grade weapons from abroad. Images of the attempted assassination of Police Chief Omar Garcia in Mexico City in June 2020 show a Belgian assault rifle by the cartel Jalisco Nueva Generation sitting in the bed of a pickup truck.

According to military documents, in the last decade, more than 2,000 weapons from companies based in Europe, Italy, Romania, Austria, Belgium and Germany have been found at crime scene in Mexico.

Between 2000 and 2015, more than 20,000 weapons were lost or stolen by federal, state and local police, according to military data. In Guerrero and Tamaulipas, the two most violent states in Mexico, 20% and 10% of weapons were lost between 2006 and 2017, respectively.

Protesters took to the streets after Israel Vasquez was shot dead in Salamanca, while a local mayor was seen blaming a journalist for reporting early in the morning in a dangerous neighborhood.

Despite the arrest of two people in connection with his murder, Vasquez’s colleagues are demanding a full investigation into the weapons and motives behind the killings.

“The people of Salamanca are demanding justice for Israel – for the loss it left as a brother, son, father and friend,” Vallejo said. “We don’t want it to be just another cold case.”

Additional Reporting by Veronica Espinosa (Processo) in Guanajuato and Dana Priest (and The Shington Post)