Lauren Villagran, El Paso Times
Fri, February 18, 2022, 3:12 PM·4 min read
The unsolved murders of journalists in Mexico overshadowed President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's tour of border cities this week that sought to tout his public security and anti-corruption initiatives.
Five journalists have been killed in Mexico in fewer than six weeks this year. The back-to-back murders in Tijuana of photographer Margarito Martínez and journalist Lourdes Maldonado López in January galvanized Mexico's beleaguered press corps to protest the dangerous conditions they work under in Mexico.
More: Juárez journalists join national protests for three colleagues slain in January 2022
López Obrador is fond of berating the press, claiming the country's most popular television journalists and largest newspapers are tools of a conservative opposition that is against him. In the president's morning news conference on Friday, Juárez journalists pressed for an accounting of the investigations into their colleagues' deaths.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador gives a news conference in Juárez on Friday. The Mexican president was visiting several cities on the northern border of Mexico to address security issues and economic development.
At different intervals in the 2½ hour conference, López Obrador said the murders would be investigated, then he attacked leading journalists in Mexico as wealthy and overpaid.
"I have friends who say, 'Stop talking about the media. Turn the page,' " he said. "No, no, no, no. It's a dangerous political matter. What do they want? That people come to the conclusion that we're all equal? No, we're not equal. We're in a struggle."
More: Juárez journalists join national protests for three colleagues slain in January 2022
More: Mexican journalist Lourdes Maldonado López murdered in Tijuana, 2nd in a week
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called out López Obrador's government on the Senate floor this week and said in a Twitter post on Wednesday that "the accelerating breakdown of Mexican institutions and the rule of law under López Obrador is a threat to U.S. national security."
Cruz pointed to the unsolved murders of journalists as evidence of that breakdown.
López Obrador dismissed Cruz's comments on Friday, saying that the verbal attack on his government "is to be expected" coming from someone who doesn't agree with his politics and "who doesn't appreciate the contributions of Mexicans in the United States."
Mexico is the deadliest country for journalists in the Western Hemisphere, according to the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists.
Mexican journalists ask questions of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a news conference in Juárez on Friday. The Mexican president was visiting several cities on the northern border of Mexico to address security issues and economic development.
In addition to the Tijuana journalists, three others have been killed in 2022: Heber López Vásquez in Oaxaca, José Luis Gamboa in Veracruz and Roberto Toledo in Michoacán.
The Mexican president visited Baja California and Sonora before arriving in Juárez as part of a tour this week highlighting a security strategy designed to focus enforcement on 50 cities and counties in Mexico where homicides were on the rise — Juárez and Tijuana among them.
Homicides are down in Chihuahua state, according to a presentation by Mexico Defense Secretary Gen. Luis Cresencio Sandoval González on Friday. Murders fell to 2,056 in 2021 from a six-year peak of 2,294 in 2020, according to data collected by Mexico's national public security agency.
More: Mexican military, helicopter part of new Juárez anti-crime operation after arson rampage
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador leaves a military base after giving a news conference in Juárez on Friday. The Mexican president was visiting several cities on the northern border of Mexico to address security issues and economic development.
The statistics don't reflect high-profile attacks in Juárez this year, including the murder and dismemberment of two women in January, a deadly shootout at the Viejo Oeste bar and the killing of six people, including a child, at a funeral this week.
López Obrador’s security strategy has not included confronting drug-related violence with force. He has preferred to focus on the root causes of poverty and on social programs.
Chihuahua Gov. Maria Eugenia "Maru" Campos, who participated in the Friday news conference, attributed the recent violence to a fight between unnamed organized crime groups for control of la plaza, or the right to control lucrative drug trafficking and distribution routes in Juárez.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador leaves a military base after a news conference in Juárez on Friday. He was visiting several cities on the northern border of Mexico to address security issues and economic development.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Mexico president faces questions in Juárez about murdered journalists
Mexico to Sen. Cruz: At least our candidates accept defeat
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, followed by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., leaves a policy luncheon, Thursday, Feb., 17, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Cruz was one of a handful of GOP senators who continued to champion former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud even after the riot, and court rejections of repeated challenges. Cruz voted against certifying the election results that night and said he has no second thoughts about that vote.
Cruz is no stranger to controversies involving Mexico.
Cruz was criticized for taking his family to the Mexican resort of Cancun in February 2021 while millions of Texans shivered in unheated homes after severe winter weather battered his state.
He cut short the Cancun trip after images circulated of him waiting at a Houston airport for his flight to the resort town. Millions of Texans had lost heat and running water and at least 40 people in Texas died as a result of the storm. Cruz later said the trip was a mistake.
Mexico's President Andés Manuel López Obrador, himself hasn't always accepted official results.
When official vote counts showed he lost the presidency in 2006 — albeit by a vastly narrower margin than did Trump in 2020 — he rallied supporters to block a major Mexico City boulevard for weeks and staged an inauguration of himself as “legitimate president.”
He accepted a clearer loss in 2012 and won the presidency by a wide margin in 2018.
López Obrador brushed off Cruz's criticism Friday, saying “it is to be expected” given the political differences between the two.
“If he praised me, I might start thinking we weren't doing things right,” López Obrador said. “But if he says we are wrong, well that for me is something to be proud of.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, followed by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., leaves a policy luncheon, Thursday, Feb., 17, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Marti
Fri, February 18, 2022, 1:58 PM·2 min read
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz has accused Mexico of “undermining the rule of law,” and Mexico's government shot back on Friday, saying at least candidates in Mexico concede defeat when they lose elections.
The exchange came after the Republican from Texas claimed earlier this week there was “deepening civil unrest in Mexico and the breakdown there of civil society, the breakdown of the rule of law.” Cruz was referring to recent killings of journalists and politicians in Mexico.
Responding in a letter to Cruz late Thursday, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States wrote, “I invite you to look at what happened in our national election."
“Without exception, all of the political parties accepted the results and got on with the task of strengthening our democracy and freedom of expression,” Ambassador Esteban Moctezuma wrote.
That was a clear reference to Sen. Cruz's actions after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that left several people dead in the immediate aftermath, hundreds facing charges and millions of dollars in property damage.
Fri, February 18, 2022, 1:58 PM·2 min read
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz has accused Mexico of “undermining the rule of law,” and Mexico's government shot back on Friday, saying at least candidates in Mexico concede defeat when they lose elections.
The exchange came after the Republican from Texas claimed earlier this week there was “deepening civil unrest in Mexico and the breakdown there of civil society, the breakdown of the rule of law.” Cruz was referring to recent killings of journalists and politicians in Mexico.
Responding in a letter to Cruz late Thursday, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States wrote, “I invite you to look at what happened in our national election."
“Without exception, all of the political parties accepted the results and got on with the task of strengthening our democracy and freedom of expression,” Ambassador Esteban Moctezuma wrote.
That was a clear reference to Sen. Cruz's actions after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that left several people dead in the immediate aftermath, hundreds facing charges and millions of dollars in property damage.
Cruz was one of a handful of GOP senators who continued to champion former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud even after the riot, and court rejections of repeated challenges. Cruz voted against certifying the election results that night and said he has no second thoughts about that vote.
Cruz is no stranger to controversies involving Mexico.
Cruz was criticized for taking his family to the Mexican resort of Cancun in February 2021 while millions of Texans shivered in unheated homes after severe winter weather battered his state.
He cut short the Cancun trip after images circulated of him waiting at a Houston airport for his flight to the resort town. Millions of Texans had lost heat and running water and at least 40 people in Texas died as a result of the storm. Cruz later said the trip was a mistake.
Mexico's President Andés Manuel López Obrador, himself hasn't always accepted official results.
When official vote counts showed he lost the presidency in 2006 — albeit by a vastly narrower margin than did Trump in 2020 — he rallied supporters to block a major Mexico City boulevard for weeks and staged an inauguration of himself as “legitimate president.”
He accepted a clearer loss in 2012 and won the presidency by a wide margin in 2018.
López Obrador brushed off Cruz's criticism Friday, saying “it is to be expected” given the political differences between the two.
“If he praised me, I might start thinking we weren't doing things right,” López Obrador said. “But if he says we are wrong, well that for me is something to be proud of.”
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