Plaza de Armas in Durango, Mexico
Latin America: Week in Review

Eight Severed Heads Found Near Durango, Mexico; Four Journalists Missing in Mexico

July 28, 2010 By Staff
Plaza de Armas in Durango, Mexico

Plaza de Armas in Durango, Mexico

Today in Latin America

Top Story Authorities in northern Mexico found eight severed heads outside the city of Durango, after receiving an anonymous tip. The victims are believed to be men between the age of 25 and 30, but authorities have yet to identify  the victims or find the bodies, according to the Durango state prosecutor’s office.

The heads were found in four locations throughout the city and were all located within the span of two and a half hours.

The anonymous tip said that two human heads were dumped on each of three main roads leading out of the city of Durango. Workers at a traffic island recovered the remaining two heads on a road leading to the city of Gomez Palacio.

The discovery of the eight human heads comes less then a week after authorities in the Mexican city of Monterrey found a mass grave containing 51 bodies.

Authorities blame much of the violence in northern Mexico on fighting between cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas gang.

Also on Tuesday, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission asked the government of President Felipe Calderón to find four missing Mexican journalists. The journalists, a reporter for Multimedios television, a reporter for the newspaper El Vespertino and two cameramen from the Televisa network, all went missing in or near the state of Durango.

“The lack of investigation into attacks on journalists has made them more vulnerable in doing their work,” the government’s rights commission said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

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1 Comment

Thank you for covering this topic.

The reasons for the current crisis in Mexico, are many and complex. The state of journalism and the free press, is desperate.

The numbers of reporters kidnapped, assaulted, and killed in Mexico has risen steadily in the past years, since well before the murder of Bradley Will in Oaxaca in 2006.

The official statistics do not report every incident, and reflect a deteriorating situation in which both the free press and other institutions of civil society are increasingly threatened. Amid these incidents, the severing of heads has become a powerful and gruesome symbol of what cannot be said, and what reporters “should not write about.”

In the past years, there have been many other murders and assassinations, including those of mayors, policemen, judges, businessmen and others who failed to yield to corruption. A continued situation of intimidation, threatened or collapsing civil, social and economic institutions prevails, and expands along with the violence.

Just over two months ago, the council of mayors declared that close to half the territory of Mexico had fallen out of their and Federal Control.

I am not sure it is appropriate for your forum, and you may delete them if you wish, but I will link to my translations of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)’s ten-point plan for Mexico. AMLO outlines both a different perspective on what is occurring and why, and a different plan of action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2GqK_vGEuY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MHHh0piutc

Mexico continues to appoach its most difficult hours. We pray your goodwill, and the support of all who have an interest in Mexico.

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