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 Technology News | May 2007 
Drug Trade's Gore Emerges Online
 Lourdes Medrano - Arizona Daily Star
Mexico's drug-trafficking world, long extolled in narcocorridos that pay musical tribute to the carnage, is spilling onto the Internet.
As a wave of drug-related violence grips the country, real-life images of bloody bodies, bullet-riddled cars and stockpiles of cocaine and assault rifles increasingly make their way to Mexican Web sites and YouTube, which is seen by millions around the globe.
"It's an old war with a new twist," said Alejandro Páez Varela, an editor at Día Siete magazine in Mexico City who has documented the drug cartels' violence and growing online presence. "It's something truly grotesque."
Some of the YouTube postings mirror the execution-style killings, kidnappings and shoot-outs that have shaken northern Mexico and other states in what Mexican authorities say is a turf battle between drug-trafficking organizations.
Among the images that have been posted: video of a man clad only in underwear being decapitated with a wire. His chest bears a black "z," an apparent reference to the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel's infamous hit men. Another video shows the full autopsy of popular Mexican singer Valentin Elizalde, who grew up in Sonora. He was shot several times after a concert in the state of Tamaulipas. The killing came after the release of a song titled, "To My Enemies," which had triggered a lot of online buzz about its intention to honor and ridicule competing drug cartels.
User concerns prompted the popular Web site to flag the two videos as inappropriate.
Mexican authorities have yet to aggressively mine the World Wide Web for evidence to prosecute suspected drug-traffickers, said Páez, adding that some of the videos are ripe with drug-activity information.
"Names, places, they are all there," he added.
The online trend is a sign of the times, said Anthony Coulson of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Tucson office.
In terms of technology, Coulson said, Mexican drug cartels lead authorities because of their abundant resources. "Their objective with the YouTube stuff is to send a message — a very graphic message."
Coulson said federal agents work closely with their Mexican counterparts, but he said there is no concerted effort to attack the online phenomenon. "We monitor that stuff when it comes to our attention, and we do what we can," he said.
In Mexico, some critics contend that the Internet glorifies the drug violence that keeps claiming lives even as President Felipe Calderón wages war on organized crime by sending army troops to troublesome areas.
More than 800 people have been killed so far this year, according to Mexican press reports.
The dead include top law enforcement officials — including the police chief of Agua Prieta, Sonora —and various journalists from throughout the country.
José Maria Ramos, a security expert at the research institute Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana, Baja California, said the governments on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border should be worried about the increasing use of the Internet to glamorize drug violence.
In addition to taunting their rivals, drug cartels are trying to exert influence over a mostly young audience that spreads far beyond Mexico, he said.
"Unfortunately, it's the dark side of the Internet," Ramos said.
Sociologist Luis Astorga, a drug culture expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the online proliferation of violent drug-related images is a natural progression of drug-trafficking corridos — also known as narcocorridos — that long have recorded the modern history of the drug trade in traditional Mexican music.
"They're like everyone else: They use whatever technology is available to send their message," he said.
Even though some YouTube videos appear to have been taped by suspected criminals, Astorga noted, it appears as if copycats and regular users are posting many still images and videos that have aired on television newscasts. The phenomenon — coupled with the media attention it grabs — contributes to elevating the image of drug traffickers to almost mythical proportions, Astorga said.
"The Internet users who are watching this trend take sides, just as if they were watching a football game."
Still, Astorga said he doesn't buy the theory that the violent online videos will mean Internet users will end up criminals. "There are a lot of people that listen to corridos, and they are not traffickers," he said, adding that many factors contribute to whether someone turns violent.
But like Ramos, University of Arizona sociologist Celestino Fernandez said there is reason for concern.
Noting the Mexican government's efforts to quell the popularity of narcocorridos, Fernandez said it would serve the people of both neighboring countries well to pay close attention to the latest trend.
"It's one thing for someone to listen to a narcocorrido and imagine the violence," he said. "It's a whole different thing to view the images online."
Contact reporter Lourdes Medrano at 573-4347 or lmedrano@azstarnet.com. |
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