Mexico screams

The unprecedented violence being meted out by drug traffickers in Mexico is ripping apart the social fabric of the country. Nearly 45,000 people have died in the five years since President Felipe Calderón began his crusade against the cartels - that is more than any country can bear, even one that has the resolve of Mexico.

The Mexicans, who until recently placed economic hardships at the top of their list of worries, are faced with a criminal brutality that is ravaging a nation, where extortion and individual and mass murders have become a daily occurrence; and where institutional weaknesses and corruption have let an intolerable percentage of crimes go unpunished - more than is acceptable in a democratic country.

One of the most perverse effects of this social battering is the increasing silence that is pervading the population regarding criminality related to the drugs trade. A number of newspapers and Mexican broadcasters, above all those in areas bordering the United States, where the violence is at its most horrifying and an almost everyday occurrence, have stopped reporting on these crimes for fear of becoming a target for the hitmen. Mexicans are starting to make use of the internet, in particular the social networks, in order to read news that otherwise is practically prohibited.

But the social networks are already in the sights of the killers, who know that instilling collective fear in the public is the definitive tool for their success. The recent and macabre murder in Nuevo Laredo, near the border with Texas, of a journalist who was very active on the social networks, together with another double murder of a similar nature earlier on in the month, suggests that the drug gangs are already turning their attention to digital information. And it's clear that they have a wealth of sources within the supposedly anonymous world of the internet. Just like the latest victim, María Macías, many of those working in the press are posting stories that their publications won't touch on the internet. Eleven journalists have been killed by the drug gangs this year so far.

The censorship of terror is threatening the very foundations of Mexico as a state governed by the rule of law. The fear of reporting among the press, which is robbing citizens of their right to be informed, is undermining the essential counterweight that journalism provides in a democratic system - one that is already under threat due to its entrenched corruption. The war against the drug lords, in which the state has become fully implicated, is being lost. And no one in Mexico, which will have a new president next year, has so far come up with a coherent political plan to escape from the abyss.