THE BORDER REPORT SECRETO A VOCES My column in The News of Mexico City

On the eve of the one thousandth day of the reporter's disappearance, the following story was not accepted by Sonoran newspaper El Imparcial unless I was willing to redact the names of those suspected in his kidnapping. The reporter, Alfredo Jiménez Mota, worked for the newspaper for seven months before he disappeared, April 2005. He's never been found. HERMOSILLO, SONORA – It was the biggest news story to hit the border state of Sonora in a year, maybe longer. Eleven people kidnapped at the hands of a Cananea narco-trafficker; then a manhunt by state police and the Army, riflemen in a helicopter hovering over the once provinical capital of Arizpe, meticulously stalking the band of killers who tried to escape down the banks of the Rio Sonora. The list of the dead grew by the hour. Seventeen. Then 20. Twenty-two. Maybe more, I lost count of how many died that day, May 17, 2007. The only element missing was the media. Except for one newspaper, every other newspaper, radio and television news station chose to avoid traveling to Arizpe until the next day. (Of course, I'm only talking about the Mexican media here; the U.S. media didn't bother to do more much more than rely on wire stories that day.) I am certain, if you asked the publishers and editors, they would give you very rational answers to why they avoided sending reporters to the scene of one of the bloodiest days in Mexico’s narco-war. Travel logistics, deadlines, budgets, you name it. Cananea lies about 45 miles south of the Arizona border with Mexico. From Hermosillo, where most of the media reside, it’s a three hour drive. But I suspect a darker secret was at work here, a reluctance by the press to report, to question. The attack in Cananea elevated a small figure in the organized crime world to new heights of notoriety, territory and power. Yet, the answer from the press – silence. What happened in Cananea proved one thing: as the narcos grow stronger, the press retreats in silence. The silence began with the disappearance of an organized crime reporter, Alfredo Jiménez Mota. Jiménez, 24 at the time, disappeared after cancelling a dinner date with a friend because he had to go meet a nervous source. We’re coming up on three years since he disappeared in April 2005 and I have more questions than answers for you. I’ve learned a new phrase in the past two years working in Sonora, secreto a voces. A lovely phrase that explains what happened on April 2, 2005, better than any photographs, fingerprints, or witness testimony. It is a secret that permeates through every level of power in this state: from the state government to the federal authorities, to the media and down to the populace. The unofficial SIEDO explanation was that Raúl Enriquez Parra, El Güero, ordered the levantón. A convenient explanation since that man was dead, his body found on a Navojoa ranch, October 2005, handcuffed, his bloody head wrapped in duct tape. Photos from the crime scene show that the body of one of his associates, Rosario Parra Valenzuela, carried the credentials of an ngo, the Council for the Defense of Human Rights. More secrets.

SIEDO officials have said that Raúl was murdered because he ordered the killing of Alfredo. Por su culpa, se calento la plaza. For more than a year, the investigators worked out of the Mexican Army base in Hermosillo. Yet, in the end, SIEDO chose to retreat from the investigation. They dropped the investigation in October 2006, because they were being threatened, they said, by the Cananea narco-trafficker, Francisco Hernandez Garcia, El Dos Mil. He owns a large, beautiful mansion, modeled after the architectural preferences of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, a hacienda-style home complete with cupolas, just outside Hermosillo.

SIEDO raided the home in July 2006; for some reason, people still live there. I find it … interesting … that Mexico’s most powerful law enforcement agency is forced to drop its investigations because it is being threatened by a regional narco.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration labels Dos Mil as a Regional Priority Organizational Target, basically, a mid-level narco. If SIEDO is truly intimidated by him, what can they possibly do against men like El Barbas, Arturo Beltrán Leyva or El Chapo, Joaquín Guzmán Loéra? More secrets.

Another narco-trafficker, equally powerful, Adán Salazár Zamorano, was never fully investigated in Alfredo’s disappearance. According to SIEDO investigative reports, eight properties belonging to the Salazars were seized. Nothing beyond that. To this day, you’d find it difficult to find any information about him. He is known to travel openly from El Paso, Texas, to Chinipas, Chihuahua, to Navojoa. Yet, one of the first major stories Alfredo wrote was an article linking Salazár to the murder of a Ministerio Publíco in Navojoa, Francisco Rafael Flores Cárdenas. Salazár openly called Alfredo in early 2005 from an El Paso, Texas, phone number, inviting him to discuss the story. And he is virtually ignored. Alfredo’s case will never be solved. There is little interest to do so. And perhaps, strong interests in not doing so. The levantón, when it happened, was perfect. No body, no witnesses. In comparison, the investigation was flawed, yet the flaws are nearly as perfect as the disappearance. Somebody removed documents and photos from Alfredo’s apartment 24 hours before his disappearance was reported. Mysterious girls … somehow … appear in televised interviews, blaming state government officials for the kidnapping. The case has moved from the realm of unsolved mystery to that of political pawn. PRD delegates accuse PRI officials of corruption while PAN newspapers wring their hands and do nothing. More secrets. I understand that one of the SIEDO investigators who had Alfredo’s case had investigated the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio in 1994. Thirteen years later, we have seen how that case turned out. Alfredo’s, it appears, will end the same, a secret whose answer we all know.

-- Michel Marizco