THE BANKER AND FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

(Hernandez v. Por Esto)

by Alvaro Cepeda Neri

I. The columnist Carlos Ramirez, vigilant even to the weeds that grow
against the constitutional liberties of the press, has reminded us of a
matter that is in the courts with respect to a problem that involves the
newspaper "Por Esto!" and its publisher Mario R. Menendez, sued by Robert
Hernandez, the Salinista, major stockholder and practical owner of Banamex
(one of the banks that the booty of privatization then placed in the hands
of the man who, in the past presidential term, was the constant scuba-diving
companion of President Zedillo and the one who loaned his island on the
Mexican Caribbean to Mr. Fox and also gave him two mansions for his use
after the election).

II. As can be deduced, Mr. Hernandez-Banamex has known how to gain
possession and create interests within the cupola of presidential power as
it passes from the PRI to the PAN party. A powerful person, but not in what
he thought he could do four years ago, that is, sue the journalist and his
newspaper. Because in the pages of Por Esto! was published an investigation
backed by facts and deepened by photographs that, according to the US
Supreme Court doctrine, met the standard of truthful information (see "The
Sullivan Gertz Doctrine: A Legal Ruling in Favor of Information" by Mariano
Albur, "Francisco Zarco Publishers," 1999).

III. The aforementioned case is owed to the fact that the banker, beyond
having been defeated twice in Mexican courts, has rebrought the case before
US judges, and like any good ignoramus (he doesn't know that the precedent
of "Sullivan-Gertz" exists), he supposes that with his money and his lawyers
he will be able to obtain a favorable judgement and punishment against the
Mexican journalist and another from the United States, Al Giordano, who are
not exactly in the eye of the hurricane, but in the tarnished peephole of
the Salinista, Zedillista and now Foxista banker.

IV. The investigative journalism (with photographs and the assistance of eye
witnesses) reported in 1996 that the beaches in the jurisdiction of the
island property of the banker (Sancho Panza has the blame for walking around
asking for islands), were used to load and unload packets of cocaine. The
information, obviously, disgusted Mr. Hernandez, but not to the degree that
he filed a complaint before the Attorney General so that they could
investigate who used his property and who benefited from this drug
trafficking. Believing himself to be owner of the world with his money and
influence in the Mexican presidential mansion, Los Pinos, what he did
instead was to accuse the newspaper edited and circulated in Yucatan as well
as its publisher, arguing defamation over a report that continues being
true.

V. The aforementioned banker has sued the US journalist because Al Giordano,
who leads modern journalistic services on the Internet, was informing and
criticizing that the reports of Sam Dillon of The New York Times, obviously
in bad faith, ignored the information that already had been published about
drug trafficking in the private beaches of the banker's island. This, when
Clinton visited the capital of the Yucatan peninsula. "Accused by Giordano,
Dillon declared that he did not consider the information to be important."
(Carlos Ramirez, El Universal, January 8, 2001).

VI. National journalism has knocking on its door a question that it must
address, since this already is about, one more time, the traditional attack
against the freedom of information in the context of Freedom of the Press.
But, beyond that, this is the first case of this kind in the administration
of Fox and the PAN. The owner of Banamex, by accusing the US journalist and
kicking anew at the Mexican journalist (and his newspaper Por Esto!), has
made this not about exercising his rights - since already he was denied
twice by Mexican courts - but rather to execute revenge against those who
exercise these liberties against power.

VII. "The matter of the lawsuit by Banamex against the journalists Menendez
and Giordano has begun to draw interest in the US. Journalist Cynthia Cotts
broke the story in late December in her "Press Clips" column of the
prestigious progressive newspaper The Village Voice of New York with the
title, "Drug War Goes to Trial." For the columnist, the matter will reveal a
lot: It will open a debate on how the media manages information about drug
trafficking." (This paragraph is from the column of Carlos Ramirez.)

VIII. But, at the same time, in the Mexican press the issue must open the
discussion about liberty of the press, above all when a group encrusted in
the Iberoamericana University and its connection with the PAN wants to
sharpen the blade of constitutional rights. Before maximizing these
liberties they are trying to reduce them, alleging that the media has
surpassed its limits. The case of Banamex-Hernandez versus the newspaper
Por Esto! and Mario R. Menendez; and the Internet newspaper
www.narconews.com and Al Giordano, is a question that touches the very heart
of constitutional liberties in the United States and in Mexico.

IX. Backed "dilligently, by the facts," with photographs, the investigative
report published by the Mexican newspaper is a characteristic work of
truthful information. And the critique that appeared in the US publication
also obeys the plain exercise of rights that the public has to receive
information in another media when it has been hidden intentionally. This is
about, above all, drug trafficking and not a story, for example, about
sports to be left to publicists.

X. The banker and his network of Salinista-Zedillista-Foxista interests, in
place of clearing up the matter, has spun its web around two journalists and
two newspapers. But this is about, once and for all, censorship of the
freedom of expression of Mario R. Menendez and Al Giordano, because in New
York, less than a year ago, they spoke again about the matter. And the
banker, believing himself owner of Banamex and of the United States courts,
insists on winning a judgment that he has already lost in advance, if he had
only known about the Sullivan-Gertz doctrine. Meanwhile, as Mexican and US
journalists, we must unite our voices to expose the attack by Roberto
Hernandez, who in the name of Banamex, persists in his vengeful conduct over
one fact: the truthful information that in the beaches of his Sancho Panza
island, on the coast of Quintana Roo, there were landings and launchings of
narco-traffickers.

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