MEXICAN JOURNALISTS RESCUED

MEXICO CITY-Mexican police rescued two journalists from a safe house
operated by members of the country's most powerful drug cartel who
held the men for six days in an attempt to pressure the country's
television networks to broadcast the cartel's video messages. Their
liberation brought to an apparent end a two-week saga that illustrates
the terror that warring drug gangs are bringing to cities along the
U.S. border.

"You can say that we were reborn," said Javier Canales, a cameraman
for Milenio Television, a unit of Grupo Multimedios, at a news
conference in Mexico City. His fellow captive, Alejandro Hernandez,
showed injuries to his bandaged head and arm where he said the
kidnappers had beaten him with a board. "They intimidated us all day
and all night...they mistreated us badly," said Mr. Hernandez, a
cameraman for Televisa, Mexico's largest television network.

Both men, as well as two other journalists, were kidnapped last Monday
by gunmen believed to be members of a cell affiliated with the Sinaloa
Cartel, Mexico's most powerful drug-trafficking organization, said
Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico's minister of public security. A top
Sinaloa cartel leader, Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, was killed by Mexican
soldiers in an unrelated raid Thursday. The cartel is led by Mr.
Coronel's associate, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who has been at large
since escaping from a maximum-security prison in 2001.

The two other reporters were freed earlier in the week.

Mr. Garcia Luna said the four men had been taken hostage by the cartel
as part of a strategy to get Mexican television networks to broadcast
the criminals' messages to "impact the community."

"This lamentable incident shows the need to stand together against
organized crime," Mr. Garcia Luna said.

The police weren't able to capture the kidnappers, who fled the safe
house as they approached, Mr. Garcia Luna said.

The rescue appears to conclude a bloody drama that began about two
weeks ago when gunmen slaughtered 17 people at a party in the northern
Mexican city of Torreon.

Then, a week ago Sunday, federal police arrested Margarita Rojas, the
director of a prison in the adjoining city of Gomez Palacio, in the
state of Durango, which has been the scene of a violent turf war
between the Sinaloa cartel and their rivals, a gang known as the
Zetas. Prosecutors say Ms. Rojas had allowed prison guards to arm
prisoners who left the prison to carry out the killings, along with
two others in the city. Thirty-five people have been killed in
shootings in Torreon this year.

The four reporters were kidnapped last week after photographing the
prison where inmates were protesting Ms. Rojas's arrest and demanding
her reinstatement.

The kidnapping throws a spotlight on what reporters and analysts say
are the increasing pressures on journalists covering Mexico's
spiraling drug violence. Carlos Lauria, of the New York-based
Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that 30 Mexican reporters
covering the drug war have been killed since President Felipe Calderon
sent out the military to take on the country's drug cartels in 2006.
Since then, some 26,000 Mexicans have died in the drug violence as
cartels fight for control of lucrative drug routes and local markets.

Border cities such as Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo live in virtual news
blackouts as reporters, threatened with kidnapping and death, don't
cover stories. On Friday, Televisa reported that a grenade exploded
outside its offices in Nuevo Laredo, breaking some windows. No
injuries were reported.

Soon after the kidnappings, the gunmen began negotiations for the
freedom of the kidnapped journalists. On Wednesday, Milenio Diario, a
newspaper owned by Grupo Multimedio, published an account of the
negotiations and said it had agreed to broadcast three unedited videos
at the request of the kidnappers. The videos showed police, held by an
unnamed gang, saying other policeman were in league with the Zetas,
one of the cartels battling for control of Torreon. Televisa also
broadcast the videos on its Torreon affiliate, local journalists said.
But on Thursday, both Milenio Television and Televisa aired broadcasts
indicating they weren't open to further negotiations.

Analysts say media outlets face a dilemma increasingly common among
many Mexican journalists who have been intimidated by organized crime.
The choice: negotiate favorable news coverage with a drug gang or risk
a kidnapping or attack. Negotiation with a drug cartel has its own
risks. It encourages organized crime to continue the intimidation and
it opens up the television station or newspaper to attacks from rival
drug gangs who believe the television station or newspaper has joined
forces with its enemy.

"We have repeatedly seen drug cartels telling editors what they have
to write, what they are not to write," said Mr. Lauria of the
Committee to Protect Journalists. "What is a network to do when they
face a situation of life or death of an employee? It's clearly
undermining democracy in Mexico."