Mexican journalist decries political corruption
By Simon Levine
Adela Navarro Bello, journalist from Tijuana, Mexico, spoke Tuesday on the corruption impeding the Mexican war against drug trafficking.
Bello painted a grim picture of President Felipe Calderon’s drug war, which has left over 22,000 dead and has consumed an enormous amount of resources. She decried the massive corruption within the ranks of Mexico’s police and military, poor cooperation between the Mexican and U.S. governments and the glorification of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Loera by Forbes and Time magazines.
As the editor of Tijuana’s Zeta magazine, Bello has continued to publish exposés of drug dealers and government corruptors, in spite of three of her colleagues having been assassinated.
Junior Alvaro Puente, physics and geosciences double major, admired Bello’s bravery.
“She said some things that very few people are willing to tackle,” Puente said.
Yet while all acknowledged the courage of her actions and the great work she is doing in Mexico, some students and faculty members had reservations about the format and message of Bello’s speech.
Freshman Lilly Cutler felt that the translation was awkwardly handled.
Cutler said, “They should have had a translator.”
Junior Ashley Girvin, psychobiology major, felt that the speech was too short.
“I wanted more, badly,” she said.
Associate Professor of Spanish Rodolfo Guzmán expressed concerns about the manner in which Bello’s speech portrayed the Mexican drug war.
“As soon as we bring it to the school it becomes an academic issue,” Guzmán said, “and if it’s an academic issue, I want to ask that it is studied from a perspective of critical thinking.”
For Guzman, the main issue is that a U.S. audience won’t have the same perspective as one in Mexico.
When we take [her] work and we bring it to the United States, the meaning of her work will change,” he said.
However, Guzmán added that he thinks Bello is a “hero” and “doing great work in Mexico.”
Zeta has a long history of covering drug violence and corruption in Baja California. Its founder and Bello’s predecessor, Jesus Blancornelas, founded the newspaper ABC in 1977, but the Mexican government quickly shut down the publication.
In 1980, Blancornelas and cofounder Hector Felix Miranda named their new magazine after the last letter in the alphabet, in defiance of the government that had shut down ABC.
Eight years later, Miranda was fatally on a rainy morning as he was sitting in the front seat of his car. The killer eventually convicted was an employee of former Tijuana politician and businessman Jorge Hank Rhon, who had been a subject of Zeta’s exposés.
However, as a cruel example of the corruption, Bello said, “the guns they used were found in the board room of a business owned by Rhon,” but no conviction was made.
“There is no more investigation,” said Bello, with audible emotion in her voice, “He is free, he lives in Tijuana, he is my neighbor!”
Contributing editor Francisco Ortiz Franco was also killed in a 2004 drive-by shooting, and Blancornelas was badly injured in a 1997 attack that left his bodyguard dead.
Bello also spoke to journalism students during her afternoon visit. She was scheduled to speak at a dinner on Monday in the Womyn’s Center, but her speech was cancelled due to scheduling issues that kept Bello in Mexico for longer than expected.
An organizer of the event, steering committee member Ivonne Florez, senior women’s studies major, said that the purpose of the dinner was just to hear Bello’s own story about her life’s work.
“She has a cool story,” said Florez. “Let’s hear her out.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
