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Emilio’s Story, Part 2 Into the Mouth of the Wolf

By Emilio Gutierrez Soto

Translation and introduction by Molly Molloy

In the last issue of Grassroots Press, Mexican reporter-in-exile Emilio Gutierrez Soto gave his first-person account of the Mexican military’s raid on his house in Ascensión, Chihuahua, in May 2008. His troubles with the army began several years earlier after he wrote a few short articles about soldiers robbing the patrons of a small hotel in the border town of Palomas, Chihuahua, in late January 2005. These articles angered the military bosses in the state, and they came to Ascensión to give him a warning.

Emilio is now living in the United States and has applied for political asylum based on the threats he continued to receive in 2008 from the Mexican military. His case is pending and will go before an immigration judge for a full hearing in January 2011. In the meantime, he is writing about his experiences and speaking out about the dangers to journalists in Mexico. In 2009 alone, 12 journalists were murdered in the country, including three in his home state of Chihuahua. More were killed in 2008, including a colleague at El Diario in Juárez, Armando Rodriguez. None of these killings have been solved. Since 2000, more than 55 Mexican journalists have been killed. It is the most dangerous country for reporters in the western hemisphere.

Some of the names in this story have been disguised or abbreviated, and the profanity of the Mexican army officer has been considerably softened in this account.

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Emilio’s Story, Part 2  Into the Mouth of the Wolf

That night in February 2005, my son and I had only been home about 20 minutes. Our house was located in an outlying area of Ascensión that had few city services, and we had just put some firewood into our stove to try to warm up the house on a cold night. Since we had not been home all day, the house was freezing.

I had just finished the workday at the offices of El Diario at the corner of Mexico and Guerrero streets and then picked up Oscar at the house where he stayed with friends after school. And so we were warming up the house and getting ready to watch a little television. Oscar was just 12 years old. And it was about 8:00 at night. The cell phone rang and Oscar answered.

“M. wants to talk to you.” Oscar handed me the phone, thinking that it was my boss in the El Diario office in Nuevo Casas Grandes.

“What’s up, boss?” I answered, thinking that he had forgotten to tell me something or needed to give me some recommendation for the next day, but instead, I heard a dry, authoritarian voice that I did not recognize on the line.

“This is Colonel M. The major and I need to speak with you. We need you to come immediately or tell us where we can find you…”

The commanding voice threw me off for a minute and I immediately responded, “I’ve closed the office for today and I don’t do work here at my house. It will have to wait until tomorrow. Please tell me when it will be convenient for you to come to the office then. I’m finished for today.”

Meanwhile, a world of ideas swirled in my head, as I tried to understand what was going on. Why would someone identifying himself as a military officer be giving me orders over the phone? The military could not order us civilians around like that. I did not even know who he was or what he had to do with anything.

“No. It cannot wait until tomorrow, it has to be right now. The Major has come from Chihuahua and he did not come all the way here to waste his time… Either you do as I say right now or we are coming for you at your house!” This order came from the one who identified himself as Colonel M. and his manner was abrupt, threatening and intimidating.

For a few minutes I stopped to think while my son gave me a worried look, listening to what was being said on the phone. Meanwhile, the logs on the fire had started to give off some warmth…here in this room in our house on our street, Arce Street, near the corner of Trigo Street here in this forgotten and crowded little neighborhood, over near the graveyard and on the way to the town garbage dump.

“Okay. How about if we meet in the Miami Restaurant on Mexico Avenue in 10 minutes?” I spoke to the voice on the other end of the line. And he answered me as if it meant absolutely nothing to him, telling me, “Look. Hurry up and make it sooner. We are not going to keep wasting our time on you like this.” And he hung up.

I knew that if the military were involved, the thing was something serious and dangerous. I told my son that I would be back soon, that he should get ready to take his bath since the house was getting warm now. But he did not want to stay by himself. “I’m going with you,” said Oscar Emilio, sounding very self-assured and giving me the confidence and support that he always had.

We put on our jackets, got in the truck, closed the metal gate to our patio and headed for this obligatory appointment. We drove around the center of town to the east and took Puebla Street toward Mexico Avenue and I stopped the truck right in front of the main door of the Miami Restaurant. I saw right away that there was a military vehicle with soldiers dressed in uniform parked directly across the street and another pickup about 30 yards away and another parked on the other side of the Hotel Miami where this meeting was supposed to take place.

I had just gotten out of my pickup when a soldier came up to me and said, “The colonel is waiting for you.” He did not give me time to go inside the restaurant, nor to get my son out of the truck. I signaled to Oscar to wait for me and walked over to where this guy in uniform told me I had to go to meet this colonel.

Colonel M. was a big guy, over six feet tall and he looked tanned and athletic from his work. His voice was intimidating.

“The major wants to talk to you,” he told me, walking away from a group of eight soldiers who were guarding the cabin of a pickup where the commanding officer was riding. The officer got out of the vehicle slowly, at the same time putting on the jacket to his uniform. He walked toward me, yelling out curses at me the whole time…

The major was short and slender, he had graying hair and dark skin. He was wearing a cap with an eagle on it that indicated his rank. His subordinates guarded his back while several others made a semi-circle around him to give him even more protection.

I immediately presented myself to the officer, who reluctantly extended his hand to return the greeting, but also lost no time in spitting out what he wanted to say: “So, you are the one who has been writing this crap that has damaged the reputation of the Army, you idiot!”

His expression and words left me frozen. I realized I had walked right into the mouth of the wolf and that there would be no easy way out for me now.

“Excuse me. What are you talking about?” I answered him with a question, trying to get some strength from inside of myself. Meanwhile, a group of soldiers surrounded me and left only a few feet of space between themselves and me. And all the while my son was watching from our truck that was parked right at the front door of the restaurant. He looked at me, shocked and afraid.

“Don’t act like an idiot, asshole. I know that you are Emilio Gutierrez…”

“Yes sir. I am Emilio Gutierrez Soto.”

“Well then, it is you who has been writing these freaking lies and bullshit…”

“No sir, I have not written lies or bullshit. Exactly what are you referring to?” I answered him as a cold sweat started to run down my back and I could see from a distance that my son looked very frightened.

“You have written that we are thieves and robbers. That my men assaulted a hotel in Palomas. Well, we have investigated, and what you wrote is nothing but lies, you idiot. They are nothing but freaking lies that you have invented, nothing but a crock of bullshit and idiocy…” The major continued to yell and curse at me while fastening the last buttons of his jacket.

“No sir. I have not made anything up. All of the newspaper articles I have written have sources and there are police reports in the headquarters in Palomas…” I kept trying to defend myself. “Even the Mayor of Puerto Palomas, Mr. Estanislao Sanchez, gave me a declaration about what happened. I have not invented anything.”

“Did you witness the soldiers robbing the hotel, or did you just hear about it?” The officer continued shouting, his face contorted with rage.

“No, I did not see the robbery, but there were witnesses who gave their testimony before the judicial police and to the mayor, who denounced the events,” I explained, even though the major kept interrupting me as I tried to answer his accusations.

“Look. I have much more important things to attend to in Chihuahua. I don’t have time to come here to look into the stupid shit that you write, you dumb son of a bitch. The Secretary of Defense in Mexico City is very pissed off and he sent me to investigate what is going on here. And I find out that it is just a bunch of lies that I have to waste my time on. And you want to wait to talk to me tomorrow, as if you had any alternative, you bastard. If you had not come down here, we would have dragged you out of your freaking house, asshole. We have already been to Palomas to check this out and there is no police report. It is nothing but lies and crap that you made up.”

“No sir. I saw the police reports and that is where I got the information. Also, the mayor called me in to see him to give me his version of what happened.”

“What version? You are really in trouble now. The freaking little mayor already told us everything and he said you made it all up!” The major yelled at me, getting closer and closer, threatening, stroking his official weapon in his uniform holster until he was only a few inches away from my face. He looked at me as if he wanted to draw the pistol and finish off this interview and me, once and for all.

“Because of you, the Secretary of Defense is pissed off and so he sends me up here as if I had nothing else to do except deal with idiots like you. Screw it. I’m here now and I am just going to tell you one thing: You have already written three articles full of idiocies and there is not going to be a fourth one, asshole. You already know what happens when you mess with us, you son of a bitch. Why the hell don’t you write articles about the narco-traffickers in this freaking town? Why do you have to write about us?”

“I don’t mess with the narcos,” I said.

“Ah, well, so you are afraid of them and not of us? When WE are the ones who rule over the freaking narcos! And you are afraid of them and not US? You idiot! I feel like putting you in this truck and taking you to the mountains so you can see how we kick the freaking shit out of the narcos. Maybe that is the only way to cure you of your stupidities.” He threatened me while practically making me lie down on the back of the military truck, and the circle of soldiers surrounding me got tighter and tighter.

About six feet away, Colonel M. watched the scene and said nothing, attentive to the orders from his boss who, as it turned out, was the officer in command of a Military Zone in Chihuahua.

“I feel like sending you straight to hell right now, but you have already caused so much trouble, asshole. Now I’m going to tell you just one more thing: If you write one more article against us, you will see what happens to you.”

To be honest, at this moment, I had no idea how I was going to be able to get out of this situation. Things were really getting out of control, and they would have an easy time doing whatever they wanted with me. There were 50 of them or maybe more. I was so afraid now and I could see my son watching the miserable scene, his eyes as big as saucers.  It looked to me like he was trembling, and I didn’t know if it was from cold or from fright. I had not left the heater running in the truck. But his fear was reflected on my face and in my whole body.

“Sir, you must believe me that I never wrote anything based on lies. I just used the sources that I had and if now they refuse to acknowledge it to you…” I was trying to excuse myself, trying to offer some sort of apology so that he would let me go.

But the military boss wanted more. He wanted me to feel his power, the power he had to kill.

“I am going to warn you once more, you idiot son of a bitch,” he repeated for the umpteenth time his favorite insult profanity. “I am going to let you go, but only because there are a lot of people around here now, asshole, but if your freaking newspaper prints anything about this interview, you are really going to be screwed. You have written three articles and there will not be one more! You understand?” He yelled his threat at me again.

“Yes sir.” What else could I say?

“Okay. Now get out of here, asshole, and be careful. We will not tolerate a fourth time. I’m not going to come up here to waste time on you again.” And then he ordered his men to “let the son of a bitch go…he has been warned.”

With my notebook and pen in hand, I walked away from the group of soldiers and went to the truck where my frightened kid was waiting. “What did they tell you, what did they want with you?” Oscar pelted me with his questions. All I said was, “They threatened me.” As I was backing out and turned north along Mexico Avenue toward the Miguel Hidalgo Park where I turned right and then left and arrived at the used car lot run by my friend J. I was really a mess, confused, pale and afraid, sure that the soldiers would still be coming after me.

Things had happened so fast. By the time I thought to look at my watch it was almost 10:00 pm. I called my boss at El Diario. He answered from his house where he had already gone to bed. As best I could I told him what had happened and he asked me: “What do you think you will do now?”

I answered, “Tomorrow I am going to write up a report of what happened and make a formal complaint to the National Human Rights Commission. If things are left as they stand now, it is just a matter of time before they carry out their threats. I need to do something to gain some time and save our lives,” I answered him, not sure of myself at all.

“Okay, but I think you should take things calmly. Go home and try to sleep and we will talk in the morning…things could get very difficult, but that is your decision,” said my boss, making me worry even more.

We got back to the house. The firewood had all burned away and with it a part of our lives disappeared also. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. We were just going to have to wait for the next criminal blow to come from the State. We had been warned…”there will not be a fourth time…”

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