Patricia Mayorga Proceso (3-23-13)
Translated by un vato for Borderland Beat
In an appearance by phone, she explained to her book's presenters and the audience at the Republican Loyalty Museum that the Federal District (DF) authorities had referred her case to the Office of Attorney General (PGR: Procuraduria General de la Republica).
Agents of the PGR are the same people who have threatened her, so they cannot guarantee her safety, said Hernandez, and she stated that international entities such as the French government, have interceded so that the DF government will continue to provide bodyguards.
The journalist reproached the government for not guaranteeing the safety of journalists or that of all citizens, because it doesn't care about them.
Also, she recalled other journalists like Ana Lilia Perez and Lydia Cacho have also had to leave the country. In Ana Lilia's case, she went into exile in Germany and Cacho has had to leave Mexico constantly.
Hernandez also spoke about the government of ex-president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa:
"It has been three months since he left power and we are dealing with a legacy of violence, of organized crime, there is a pitched battle, Chihuahua is living through it. And it shows: there's retail drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, there's violence throughout the border."
She pointed out that Enrique Pena Nieto has not offered an analysis of the country's status, how Felipe Calderon Hinojosa left it; neither does (Pena Nieto) say how many cartels there are, what kinds of arrangements they have, what is his plan of action.
That "is serious because we need to know; Felipe Calderon is not held accountable, that's why he is able to smile at us from Harvard. He (Pena Nieto) does not explain how he's going to change this. Neither do we know the Sinaloa Cartel's situation that has provoked the fury of the drug cartels and triggered the violence; Who's going to inform us?" she asked.
She said that the commitment from the press is strong in the face of the vacuum that the government is (surreptitiously) promoting and the impunity that prevails.
"Enrique Pena Nieto, as governor of the State of Mexico, denied the presence of criminal organizations, he tried to cover up the violence and today we have the State of Mexico in flames," the journalist declared.
Because of this situation, she believes that reliable and timely information is required, and she called for the citizenry to be aware of the seriousness of attacks and murders committed against journalists, because this is not just about the death of a person, but a violation of the right of society to be informed.
"We need to remain strong," she said.
The vicar general of the Cuauhtemoc-Madera Diocese and the book's presenter, Camilo Daniel Perez, said that the country's situation is not because of a failed State, it's not even because of a lazy and corrupt State, but because of a criminal State.
"The book is a witness, clear, striking of the children of corruption and the complicity of high government officials, at all levels, that are responsible for creating a Mexico in flames. Anabel says there has always been corruption; the authorities had entered into agreements with the cartels, who paid so that they would respect boundaries... the lords of the narco are politicians and businessmen," he explained.
Perez emphasized the legacy that Calderon left the country, from Anabel's point of view: the infinite power of drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera, El Chapo, who is untouchable; unpunished murders and the victims of the so-called war against drug trafficking; the destruction of the National Action Party (PAN: Partido Accion Nacional); the country controlled by crime, and the return of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI: Partido Revolucionario Institucional) to Los Pinos (the Presidency).
The priest summed up the book's six chapters that assert that Calderon Hinojosa will be remembered as the president of extermination. "From the religious point of view, for me, he was a profoundly fundamentalist person, with an iron ethic about some things and lax in others."
Most worrisome in the book, he stresses, is the content of Chapter 6, which "talks about mercenaries, of smaller criminal organizations that do not belong to any cartel, but hire themselves out to the highest bidder: criminal organizations, businessmen, private parties, politicians-- it is the worst legacy."
Antonio Villegas Flores, coordinator of the "Discussion Circle" and organizer of the event, stated that they had presented Anabel Hernandez's book in Puebla, Queretaro and the Federal District (DF), and they had to cancel in Xalapa because they cannot travel on the highways because of the danger.