Miami, Florida
(Apr. 11)-The Inter American Press Association today expressed outrage
at the murder of a Mexican journalist, Pablo Pineda Gaucín,
and publicly called on the government there to take immediate action
to bring those responsible to justice.
Pineda, 39, was a reporter for the La Opinión daily newspaper
in Matamoros, near the U.S. border in the northern state of Tamaulipas.
His body, with the hands tied, a plastic bag over the head and a
bullet wound to the neck, was found on Sunday on the banks of the
Río Grande river on the U.S. side of the border near Harlington,
Texas.
The IAPA sent a message to Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo expressing
its concern at the murder and stressing that "the authorities
must take up the matter and carry out an in-depth investigation
to determine who is responsible."
The note called the slaying "outrageous." It was signed
by the president of the hemisphere free-press group, Tony Pederson,
of the Houston Chronicle, Houston, Texas, and the chairman of its
Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina,
of El Nacional, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
"The magnitude of this crime shows just how fragile press freedom
is when a single shot can silence the press.," the IAPA note
declared. "Priority must be given to solving this and other
cases of the murder of journalists in Mexico that continue to go
unpunished. It also a matter of urgency to ensure the physical safety
of journalists so they may go about their work without having to
fear for their lives."
Pinedas body was discovered by U.S. border patrol agents. Police
sources said marks on the body indicated he had been tortured before
being killed execution-style. Pineda, who covered a crime beat and
had a blunt style of writing, had survived an attempt on his life
late last year.
Figures gathered by the IAPA show that 10 journalists have been
killed in Latin America since October last year - five of them in
Colombia, two in Mexico and one each in Guatemala, Uruguay and Haiti.
The IAPA said it was planning to send members of its newly-formed
Rapid Response Unit to Mexico to look into the latest murder there.
The Unit was set up as part of the hemisphere press organizations
Unpunished Crimes Against Journalists project to conduct its own
on-the-spot inquiries to help bring the guilty to justice. The results
of these investigations are posted on the Web at www.impunidad.com.