Arrests at the Mexican Parliament Building in October 2001

[evanlong]

We are probably all familiar with the October 2001 arrests of Salvador Guersson Smecke and Saur Ben Tvi in the Mexican parliament building as reported by Mexican news services such as La Voz de Aztlan, "a totally independent news service", and also by more established services such as the Cronica de Hoy and Diario de Mexico.

Well, the Narco News web site also ran a story about this just after it happened (http://www.narconews.com/mexicancapitol1.html)and commented that, while it was making the front pages in Mexico, no English-language wire services were writing anything about it.  The next day, they corrected themselves about the media silence outside Mexico when they found that now-Wonkette blog editor Ken Layne wrote on his site (http://web.archive.org/web/20011103203433/http://kenlayne.com/2000/2001_10_07_logarc.html) that

"a quick search of the Dow Jones database shows five English-language wire reports on Oct. 11 (two from EFE News Service, and one each from Dow Jones, AP, and Notimex), one on Oct. 12 (BBC), and one today (Agence France-Presse)"

Interestingly, Layne continued to write that

the seven wire stories make the whole thing seem pretty tame, and probably harmless -- I wasn't there, so all I can do is compare seven different wire reports to the newspaper article, and look for patterns.

The wire stories say the men work for a Mexican company called Private Security Systems Development; that the company's lawyer says the men (both former members of Israel's military; one a naturalized Mexican citizen) have permits for their pistols; that the men were outside the House of Representatives and on their way to a meeting to try to sell their company's security services (Mexico City is plagued by kidnappers who go after anybody worth a ransom payment); that the "nine grenades" was a novelty cigarette lighter; that the "sugar industry" workers were a bunch of farmers having a Sit-In outside the government building; that said sugar farmers were annoyed by the men taking photos of the area, which would be necessary if they were selling private security services to officials who worked there; and that the "bomb" consisted of some cables in a briefcase one of the men carried.

The most telling detail in this story comes from a BBC translation of a Notimex report: "The arrest of the two individuals, one who said he was Mexican and the other Israeli, provoked a huge police mobilization this Wednesday (10 October) at the Congressional headquarters, known as the San Lazaro Palace."

Layne concluded by stating, in part,

I don't think the U.S. media "censored" this story [as suggested by Narco News]. They just didn't think it mattered. There are security scares every hour in every capital. You can't run every four-graf wire story about a freakout

However, when there are mundane security scares of the type Layne is referencing in Washington, D. C., for instance, they do not, in fact, make the papers in the U. S. or anywhere else, for that matter, but this particular incident was given front-page coverage by several Mexican periodicals.  Notably, Layne doesn't bother to comment on why he thinks the Mexican version was so much more serious.

Does anyone have access to these wire reports?