Both these murders are heinous crimes. Both are despicable. Both are politically charged and come with a background of sleaze, both point to weaknesses in the countries where they happened.
The difference
One was in Mexico and is getting coverage from thousands of news sources and reports, the other was in Colombia and has precisely two reports published on the web in the English language. Now that's a coincidence, isn't it?
Here's an example of the Mex story:
(Aug. 30) -- The Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, known for drug-related violence, saw more bloodshed when the mayor of Hidalgo was shot dead by suspected cartel hitme
The killing of Mayor Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, 46, on Sunday comes just a few days after a wave of car bombs were set off in the state capital and less than a week after the bullet-ridden corpses of 72 migrants were found at a ranch near the U.S. border. Experts suspect that the Zetas -- a bloodthirsty drug gang formed by former Mexican army commandos, and dubbed the most "sophisticated and dangerous cartel operating in Mexico" by the U.S. government -- are behind many of the crimes.
Leal was driving through his rural municipality at 4:30 p.m. Sunday when CONTINUES HERE
Here's how one of the only two stories on the Colombia murder available in English kicks off:
Colombian human rights defender Norma Irene Perez, who was involved in investigating allegations of a mass grave in La Macarena, was found shot to death, according to a Bogota-based NGO.
The Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CPDH) announced in a press release that Perez was found dead with multiple bullet wounds in the rural municipality of La Union, close to La Macarena in the Meta department, on August 13. Perez, a mother of four, went missing on August 7.
La Macarena mayor's office claims Perez died after stepping on a land mine and was not murdered.
Perez was a member of the Upper Guayabero Regional Committee for Human Rights. She was among rights workers who in July agitated for an investigation into allegations of 2,000 unidentified bodies in a La Macarena graveyard. CONTINUES HERE