Send In Giuliani

If you think being a journalist in the Middle East is a risky proposition, you need only trek just south of the border to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico to find the most dangerous and lawless place in the world where no one with pen and pad, even police, can walk the streets in safety unless they are on the "payroll." Drug gangs with no care for human life rule the area with bloody fists and a crapload of guns. There have been at least 108 execution-style murders since January. (Makes Baltimore look like Mayberry and for that matter, Gotti in his prime would have been their bitch.) Eight journalists have suffered the ultimate penalty for trying to do a little investigative reporting:

* Roberto Javier Mora Garcia, March 2004 - The editor of Nuevo Laredo's El Ma ana newspaper was stabbed to death outside his home.
* Leodegario Aguilera Lucas, May 2004 - The editor of the magazine Mundo Politico was kidnapped in Acapulco. His body was found Sept. 8.
* Francisco Javier Ortiz Franco, June 2004 - The senior editor of Tijuana's weekly Zeta was shot to death as he was driving with his two children, who weren't hurt.
* Francisco Arratia Saldierna, August 2004 - The columnist for several Sonora state newspapers, was killed in the city of Matamoros. Saldierna, who had apparently been tortured, was found outside the local Red Cross offices and taken to a nearby hospital, where he died later that day.
* Gregorio Rodriguez Hernandez, November 2004 - A photographer for the newspaper El Debate, Hernandez was gunned down in Escuinapa while he dined with his family at a restaurant.
* Jose Alfredo Jimenez Mota, April 2 - The crime reporter for El Imparcial, a Hermosillo-based daily, has been missing since he went to interview a drug source. He's presumed dead.
* Dolores Guadalupe Garcia Escamilla, April 5 - She was shot multiple times outside the Nuevo Laredo radio station Stereo 91 when she arrived for work at 8 a.m. She died April 16.
* Raul Gibb Guerrero, April 8 - The publisher of the Veracruz daily La Opinion was killed in an ambush as he was driving home by four men who fired at least 14 shots, three to his head.

Let's get Jarvis down there to live-blog this shit. Anonymously, of course.

Free speech a casualty as Mexican journalists killed [Salt Lake Tribune]
Previously on Blottered: A Smart Man Would Bet On The Drug Lords
Related: The September issue of Details has a great article about one of their writers going down there for a story and getting shot at on the day he arrived.