On the Border

by **marykmusic** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:32 pm

The Minutemen are gaining strength here in the Southwest. Sometimes they seem to make sense; other times not. I found this comment on the Arizona Indymedia (I'm a moderator on the editors' list, a sometimes reporter/photographer.) Keeping an eye on the Comments section is part of what I do. This particular subject has had a lot of posts "hidden" because of screamingly racist comments, but I found this gem today: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>CIA drug running yo minute--piquito hombres, beinveneido gringos, yo know that your CIA and border patrol migras are involved in rampant drug running, using your border and the cover of the "illegals" to bring in their tons of stash from around the world--herion from the renewed drug-state of usafghanistan, crack-cocaine originating from the death-fields of school of the america's columbia, the CIA the biggest drug mafia the world over, hell-bent on cornering the entire market. So welcome to the hell they've created across the borderlands, into Mexico to the South and across the world, with their CIA puppet governments, their widespread military wars, and the countless blackmarket thugs--pee-ons for the "Citidel." The reason the us drug government is upset with the piquito-hombres/minute-men's presence on the border is that they might disrupt the cash flow of their drug running, or accidently stumble onto and expose this for all the tv-brain-dead americans to finally see. So leave your racism behind for a change, and while pattering around the rattlesnake border, open your eyes and see the truth of what is really happening. If you are going to be here anyway, despite what all reason and compassion, integrity and awareness might try to awaken in you, then at least come with an honest eyes open to the corruption your deadly government is really involved in along the border: CIA drug running, satanic sexual kidnapping, mutilation and killings, and the terroizing of peoples across both sides of the border. Then, once you've began to awaken to these truths, find something constructive to do with your self-professed bravery--are you piquito hombres tough enough to take on the real border illegals--the CIA, border patrols, an us business interests behind all this--making conditions in mexico so deplorable that the country is fleeing northward? If you want to solve the border "problems" address the real causes which start in your own tv-zombieland usa in dc itself--grow into the challenge and take your piquito-hombres/minute-men to dc and follow the advice of your self-professed "founding fathers" and create the revolution so needed in your own lands. Viva Zapata! (and than give the sw back to Zapatista-Mexico from where your country of liars stole it!) <hr></blockquote> It's signed by Zorro. It is indeed a problem of our own making. Hoping to start a dialogue, here's what I wrote him back: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Subject: Eloquent comment... ...and truthful, on Indymedia. You have hit several points on why there is a problem at all. I tried to find the website for zapatista.org and cannot. There may be a block on it. If there are others like you there, consider it hacked. We have that problem with some of the work that we do, too.Where we live is south of Casa Grande, on the border of the Tohono O'odham rez. We see a great deal of what happens, from being buzzed by fully-armed Black Hawks to standard La Migra action. Thankfully, we haven't been hounded by any of the Minutemen here... not yet.The problem is, indeed, of our own making. The labor laws that were put in place in Mexico in the 1920's did just fine until NAFTA and other corporate moves... the drug-running is rampant and always has been.Consider writing a story to expand on what you said in your comment about the Minutemen, to post on Indymedia. There is plenty of written material on the drug-running that can be used as references.You mentioned the ritual-abuse aspect, which is also a huge issue that most Americans are blind about... (here's where I invited him to this site and discussion forum.) Perhaps you will revise your opinion that all Americans are TV-zombies... --MaryK <hr></blockquote> So many Bad Things are tied up in this protect-the-border issue. It isn't only about wetbacks. At the top are the corporate controllers who profit off this whole thing, from easy access to slave labor to the huge profits made in drug-running. The factories that were built by US companies when NAFTA was new are empty; the maquiladores who worked in them are today's immigrants. Their jobs also went overseas where there was even cheaper labor, such as China. This is a huge issue here in the Southwest. Despite the Homeland Security spending and trumpet-blowing, the money often doesn't go where it's supposed to: <a href="http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/29045.php" target="top">Homeland Security goons misspending tax dollars</a> One of the Assistant Scoutmasters in our troop (I'm the other one) works for Border Patrol, and I hear stories... the tribe south of us doesn't want all those goons tearing up their rez searching for the illegals; the new recruits are a bunch of thugs and idiots... he's in a very frustrating job. Multiply him by thousands who are trying to do that job. The sheer frustration level is terrifying; these are heavily-armed but in general poorly-trained specialists. And they DON'T have the equipment they're supposed to have. It's a band-aid solution, anyway, hiring untold numbers of new Border Patrol agents, equipping them (whether they actually GET that equipment doesn't matter because the manufacturers get paid) and doing minimal training to get them in the field as fast as possible. There are the Minutemen, which started at a ranch that was actually ON the border, down near Tombstone. That guy had a problem, and he created his own band-aid solution. But the real problem, one that I foretold twenty years ago when I was a cowboy in New Mexico, and my crew was a handful of green-card (legal) immigrants who came to work on the ranch every summer, started with NAFTA. There are no food stamps in Mexico. People do what they gotta do. And that includes walking across the desert in search of a job. --MaryK

by **rain** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 3:43 pm

little wonder he had all the gals swooning. just georgeous. Knight of the Heart thanx MaryK.

by **marykmusic** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:58 am

We've got all the nukes necessary to pull off the "terrorist attack" that Chertoff is warning about... If they were really worried about nukes being smuggled across the Mexican border, perhaps the equipment that was bought and paid for would actually have arrived and been put in use. Can you say, "Be afraid. Be very afraid." I hope not, because that's precisely what THEY want. --MaryK

by **dbeach** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:17 am

GHW BUSH is the biggest drug pusher in history Opium poppy would sell anybody and anything for mo money and mo power WORST family in history ..worse and more dangerous in a homicidal way than their royal cousins in britain..

by **Starman** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:59 am

Thanks for the informative heads-up post on border issues and at-odds conflict of interests. It's rather incredible how little news of Mexico filters north, esp. considering the huge impact US policies have on events in Mexico and how the fantasticly lucrative US-drug trade causes immense problems for smuggling, corruption and gang violence. I didn't know the NAFTA-era maquiladoras/factory-complexes were now empty, themselves the victim of more-aggressive, exploitive cheap-labour outsourcing -- amazing this has passed beneath the radar of public attention, at least to the extent it has. The following is a 2002 description of the kind of changes NAFTA brought to the new 'factory villages' and worker slums, and the real social 'costs' of unregulated exploitive cheap-labour and resulting environmental degradation -- truly an awful story of abuses and cruelties and crises that resulted from a foolish scheme that very few really benefitted from. The politicos who made NAFTA happen should be held accountable for their nightmare. *** <a href="http://www.arena.org.nz/maquila.htm">www.arena.org.nz/maquila.htm</a> A REPORT ON NAFTA AND THE STATE OF HEALTH OF THE MAQUILAS By Saul Landau June 2002 My students ask if NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico) has worked as splendidly as President Clinton and now President Bush claim. After spending a few late June days in the El Paso-Juarez area, I can report that NAFTA works fabulously, if you're a speculator - I mean investor - or a multinational corporate CEO and your Juarez branch plant remained open. A few Mexican millionaires that lease land for industrial parks and those who feed off contracts to the export factories have also fared well. For the more than 1 million Mexicans working in the maquilas who have not lost their jobs recently, well, they've survived, which they could not have done had they remained on the unproductive land of their origin. The contemporary maquilas represent yet another industrial revolution. Instead of reading about Manchester or Leeds in the 1840s, visit Tijuana or Juarez today. Our modern equivalent of a Dickensian saga features the maquila, which attracts country folk to cities and then leads them into human dramas. In Juarez, for example, the remains of more than 250 women have been found raped and mutilated. Almost of all them worked in maquilas. People from tradition-bound communities have made the difficult transition to non-community life where each person must suspect his neighbor - themes for modern tele-novelas. Ciudad Juarez, across the once mighty, but now a trickle, Rio Grande River has grown cancerously. Yes, growth has little to do with development. Its barren, sandy hills have sprouted unplanned colonias (euphemism for hideous slums). Rural families arrive after surrendering to the fact that the land no longer supports them. They find jobs in the export factories, patch together homes from pieces of wood, metal and plastic, and find ways to tap into the power line (some get fried). They wait for the circulating water and gas trucks blasting "La Cucaracha" on their speakers to bring the needed material for life and cooking. The families often store the water in old metal chemical barrels. The air, once just dusty during the high wind season, now reeks of emissions from factories and the stench of un-muffled auto exhaust. Since the United States tightened border security, the cars sit two to three times longer on the bridges connecting Juarez with neighboring El Paso. The fumes drop on the residents. In colonias like Anapra and Lago Poniente, the rural folks rapidly acquire urban ways. They try to raise their kids to become academic achievers or send them into the maquilas in their mid teens to contribute to scarce family income. Alarming numbers of young people turn to drugs, prostitution and gang delinquency. The shacks in the colonias face unpaved streets where mangy dogs drop their loads and little kids run barefoot through the summer dust. But, says Ana Maria, mother of three and Catalina mother of seven, at least Juarez meant certainty of employment. Two years ago, when I had last visited Juarez, most of the maquilas boasted "help wanted" signs and ran three shifts a day. Employment neared 100 %. An unhappy worker in factory A could quit and find work at Factory B across the street where the wages were five centavos an hour more or had better cafeteria food. That workplace mobility has ended with the onset of recession. Over the last eighteen months, some 250,000 factory workers have lost their jobs in Mexico. Ironically, some of the very factories that moved from the United States in the 1980s and 1990s now find compelling reasons - lower wages - to shift operation to Asia. Catalina and Ana Maria and their many children have recently received their pink slips. The once buzzing factories where they worked have transmogrified into misshapen tombstones; industrial parks have turned into industrial cemeteries. Creeping weeds and blowing plastic and paper litter now cover a once buzzing parking lot in front of Quality Industrial Services. A lone security guard shares the space with a scruffy cat and an elusive bird. "It's difficult," the guard told me "to see maquilas shutting down, moving to China." The man blamed last year's US economic downturn for putting Mexicans out of work. On the surface, says Chihuahua sociologist Victor Quintana, "the job losses come from the US recession and the post 9/11 shocks, but in reality that's a smoke screen for deeper causes. The US recession was hardly a cold, while we in Mexico developed full pneumonia." The maquila model, Quintana predicts, has exhausted its potential. "Mexico cannot compete with China. But the model has done its damage." Two years ago, he says, "Chihuahua led Mexico in high employment; today, Chihuahua leads in unemployment." Thanks to lay offs from factory shut downs or factories moving or reduction of shift, Chihuahua has lots more than 100,000 jobs. According to a June 20 Washington Post story, over the last two years "more than 500 foreign-owned assembly-line factories in Mexico" moved to China. The company accountants have concluded that the wage differential between the two third world countries more than covers the increased costs of shipping and the inconveniences of distance. In Juarez, where cost of living runs about 75% of El Paso across the river, a maquila a beginning machine operator earns less than $8 a day, whereas his counterpart in China makes only a quarter of that pathetic wage. Victor Quintana doesn't mourn what he believes is the end of the maquila era. What NAFTA and the whole free trade model did was to "launch a cultural offensive against the majority of the world's poor." Quintana insists that the maquila represents far more than a new form of production. It "dictates how we relate, how we live, what we do, consume. It dictates individualism, breaks apart community, a form of terrorism, which leads people to ways of avoiding life; booze, crack and cult religions. It inundates us with its cultural propaganda. The maquila has its own discourse, one that mocks traditional values like cooperation and solidarity. Its only values are individualism and competition." Quintana has little patience with the rich and powerful, like President Vicente Fox himself, who wring their hands about our `losing our traditional values' while they eagerly bring the value-destroying maquilas into the country for economic growth. "Maquilas offer growth rates, but also crime rates. Those who preach that we should respect Nature invite the maquilas in who destroy Nature. Maquilas destroy people and their natural bonding." Maquilas are beyond cruel. They embody the impersonality of multinational corporate capitalism. Take the case of Leticia Ortiz who came to Juarez from the countryside 19 years ago. She worked her way up in a large maquila to become head of personnel. Then, without warning, she received her unceremonious dismissal. The CEOs located in some first world city had decided to move their plants to China where wages ran significantly lower than those in Juarez and productivity was just as high. "Bitter?" No, just disappointed," she said. "After working my up for all those years I guess I foolishly developed a sense of loyalty to the company, a sense that was not reciprocated. They didn't even pay me what they owed me for severance according to the law. But it would take too long and it would be too expensive to fight it, so I accepted their less than generous offer" After receiving her pink slip, Leticia said she went home and cried for hours. Then, she said, I basically slept for the next six months. I guess you could call it depression." HISTORY From 1965 on, Juarez opened its first maquilas in order to deal with a recently laid off labor force of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers that could no longer work in the Texas cotton fields thanks to a newly designed machine that replaced them. US investors led the way into Mexico. Low wages and a productive work force, low taxes and no environmental regulation or costs related to OSHA like agencies made Mexico attractive. But, gradually, independent unions, backed by some AFL-CIO unions, began to move into the border cities and their appearance alone produced a rising impact on wages. Up until last year, investment in Mexican maquilas had continued to rise. Since 1994 NAFTA provided the kosher stamp for wary investors and the rate of maquila growth had reached double digits. NAFTA provided tax-free incentives for maquila owners, so US companies now ship raw materials to Mexico and then import finished parts or assembled products tax-free: electronics, electrical goods, automobiles and trucks and trailers or their parts, wood and plastic products and textiles. When the maquila experiment began in 1965, Juarez attracted a handful of factories. But now almost 4000 of these mostly foreign-owned export production plants dot the landscapes of border cities like Juarez, Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales, Matamoros and other border towns. Indeed, the maquilas have moved into the interior of the country as well. The maquilas account for about half of Mexico's almost 150 billion annual exports. But efficient as Mexican labor has proven to be in global competition, they fall far short of Chinese workers for the low wage labor champion. Some Juarez plants had even anticipated this and built automated, even robotized factories there. An Italian owned factory manufactures TV and computer chases made in a mold and extracted by a robot. The plant uses comparatively few workers. The Italian plant manager said it made strategic sense to open a plant in Juarez, given its proximity to the US border. "The wages we pay here are about one fourth of what we would have to pay in Milan," he added. But Mexicans who came to Juarez did so from necessity. The could no longer eke out a subsistence livelihood on the land. They came because maquilas seemed to promise permanent, albeit low-level job security. What happens now that some of these people have become unemployed? According to Sociologist Quintana, a few return to the villages they were forced to leave to find gainful employment. Some still try to traverse the difficult obstacles of the US border. Near El Paso, however, since the 9/11 attacks events, almost no one tries successfully to cross. US high technology and vigilant patrols act as a virulent form of deterrence. Further west, in the hottest and remotest sections of the Arizona desert, where summer temperatures top 115 degrees, the coyotes lead their human prey. These dealers in human flesh offer their crossing the border "services" for a price to those desperately wanting to reach US territory. The coyotes assure their clients of plentiful water. The coyotes often abandon their charges just at the point when the water runs out and the temperature becomes inhospitable for human life. Through mid June alone, more than 20 Mexicans, including an 11 year old girl had died trying this route. Regularly stories appear in the media about speeding vans carrying "undocumented" workers crashing and killing the occupants in attempts to elude border patrol chasers. Since last October almost 50 Mexicans have fallen trying to make it to the Tucson area. US immigration laws are death laws, said one Mexican border resident. Thanks to the newly militarized border patrol vigilance the traditional flow of Mexicans into the United States has noticeably decreased. The usual zones have too many patrols, so the perilous desert has become the choice of the truly desperate and adventurous. As a result of this crackdown on braceros or mojados most of the newly unemployed will remain in Juarez. The population may have reached 3 million, speculates Felix Perez. "No one has counted. Each day hundreds, maybe thousands arrive at the bus station, looking for work in the maquilas." "I'm staying in Juarez," Ana Maria said. "It's rough here, but it's impossible where I came from." Maquila salesmen preach to potential investors that Mexico's work force can still compete for low wages and high productivity with other third world countries. That's global competition! Which country can offer its people for the lowest wages, can promise polluting industries the least environmental regulation, the lowest taxes, the least workplace monitoring for health and safety and the least prospect for unionization! This is the free market. This is democracy! To keep it healthy, if you listen to President Bush or President Fox, we need more of the same. President Bush makes no reference to the labor, environmental and social horrors that have developed alongside what has become known euphemistically as free trade. Indeed, he pushes hard and patriotically to expand his "free trade" authority, called Fast Track -- because Congress will not have a chance to debate the details. A few days in Juarez should enlighten any sensitive person to the fact that there is no guiding brain in this maquila process. The bottom line, which dictates corporate policies, dictates all of life. Well, you decide. ************** And here's some background on Mexico's history of gangland/drug lord assassinations and crime circa early -to -mid 90s; <a href="http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/institutional_analysis/mexprias.html">www.totse.com/en/conspira...prias.html</a> An Introduction to the Mexican Assassinations The recent string of political assassinations in Mexico makes for a true-crime story of epic scope, a modern classic in the Conspiracy genre. The convoluted plot line revolves around the cozy links between Mexico's powerful drug cartels and the ruling government's corrupt "narcopoliticians": During the presidency of Harvard-educated Carlos Salinas de Gortari, drug lords enriched venal officials at the highest levels of government, in return for their protection of the underground drug economy; when reform- minded politicians threatened to put an end to the graft, narcopols in the ruling party had them bumped off; finally, the inevitable coverups and denials began. Though in America the Mexican assassinations aren't the stuff of ongoing headlines, south of the border the press regales a delighted and mortified public with new revelations and rumors each week. As a service to our paranoia-starved readers, 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time has waded through the press accounts, the rumors, the official claims. In the compressive spirit of "Cliffs Notes," we now present our English-language synopsis and analysis of this epic Latin-American tragicomedy in the making. A note to serious conspiracy students: These notes are not a substitute for the text itself or for classroom discussion of the text. We do not advise that students use these notes strictly for the purposes of cramming the night before an examination. LIST OF CHARACTERS Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo The Catholic cardinal assassinated by drug traffickers in Guadalajara. Luis Donaldo Colosio The presidential candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who was assassinated during a rally in Tijuana. Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu The PRI's secretary general who was assassinated while leaving a PRI breakfast meeting in Mexico City. He was slated to be incoming President Zedillo's "strongman" in charge of internal political affairs and the police. Benjamin and Javier Arellano Felix Kingpins of Baja's top drug trafficking syndicate, the Arellano brothers have been implicated in the assassination of the cardinal. Edgar Nicolas Mariscal ("El Negro") One of the alleged gunmen in the assassination of the cardinal. El Negro was arrested only last month--packing an Uzi and fake government credentials. Mario Aburto Martinez The man initially charged by authorities as the lone-nut gunman who killed Colosio. Though Aburto confessed to the crime, Tijuana police nabbed another probable gunman. Jorge Antonio Sanchez That probable second gunman. Though he swore he had been nowhere near Colosio, unfortunately for Sanchez, his clothes were spattered with Colosio's blood, and he tested positive for powder burns. Fortunately for Sanchez, he is also an agent of CISEN, Mexico's equivalent of the CIA, and was immediately set free by the federal authorities. Othon Cortes Vasquez Another alleged second gunman in the Colosio assassination (according to prosecutors). He was a PRI driver and police informer. Manuel Murloz Rocha The PRI congressman named by the captured assassin of Ruiz as a facilitator behind the killing. After taking refuge in the home of President Salinas's brother, Raul Salinez, Murloz vanished without a trace, Jimmy Hoffa-like. Carlos Hank Gonzalez The Agriculture minister, alleged to be tight with the drug cartelsdescribed as "the biggest money launderer in Mexico." Hank (working with other officials close to President Salinas) is thought by many to be the mastermind behind the Colosio assassination. Jorge Hank Rhon Hank Gonzalez's son, a money launderer in his own right. Two Aeromexico flight attendants claim to have seen Hank Rhon seated in the first class section beside the Arellano brothers during their flight from the scene of the cardinal's assassination. Juan Garcia Abrego The boss of Grupo del Gulfo, Mexico's largest drug cartel, and the suspected underworld figure behind the Ruiz Massieu assassination. Carlos Salinas de Gortari During his term of Mexico's president, Salinas appointed assorted corrupt "narcopoliticians" to positions of authority. Blamed by just about everyone for his country's collapsing economy and rampant corruption, the former Mexican president fought back last spring by embarking on a short-lived hunger strike. Starvation failing to rehabilitate his image, he subsequently exiled himself to Canada, where Salinas sightings have outpaced appearances by dead Elvis. Raul Salinas de Gortari Brother of the ex-president. Now in custody of the authorities, Raul Salinas stands accused of having masterminded the Ruiz Massieu assassination, on behalf of the Hanks and drug lords. Mario Ruiz Massieu Brother of the slain PRI secretary general. As attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu led the probe into his brother's death, and accused high-ranking PRI members of a coverup. But then after suddenly resigning Massieu flees for Spain, is arrested in New Jersey and is accused himself of covering up Raul Salinas's role in plotting his brother's assassination. Juan Pablo de Tavira Current Mexican President Zedillo's short-lived federal police chief, who was poisoned in his sleep (possibly by his chief bodyguard) hours before a meeting to plan the purge of police commanders connected to the drug cartels. He is currently in an irreversible coma. Federico Benitez The police chief of Tijuana. Federico Benitez defied PRI honchos who advised him not to provide extra security at at the Colosio rally. Benitez's police arrested the suspected second gunman, Jorge Antonio Sanchez. Benitez was himself assassinated a few weeks later, just as he was beginning to investigate Colosio's PRI security team. ACT I Summary On May 24, 1993 a band of drug traffickers assassinates Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo at the Guadalajara airport. Opening the doors of the clergyman's car, the hit men ventilate Cardinal Posadas with automatic weapons at point-blank range. Eventually, an alleged gunman will be arrested, and the first official government explanation will surface: The cardinal--who was dressed in religious vestments--was "mistaken" for a rival drug kingpin, one "El Chapo" (Shorty). Skeptics, however, claim that agents of the federal judicial police and high-ranking Cabinet officials were also involved. Commentary The initial official explanation was ludicrous; Posadas didn't resemble El Chapo in the least, and the cardinal's gown featured a large cross--hardly the preferred tailoring of Latin-American drug traffickers. More likely, Posadas was murdered by a drug cartel hit squad attempting to send a signal to would-be reformers in the Mexican government. According to the story in Guadalajara, the cardinal "had evidence of the government's relationship with the drug trade and was getting ready to give the information to the head of the church." According to Andrew Reding, director of the North America Project of the World Policy Institute, "Posadas was the only major authority figure in Guadalajara not owned by the narcotics traffickers. The drug barons killed him to send a message to the government. Posadas was an outspoken critic of drugs and guns." The evidence of government complicity in the killing? Shortly after the assassination, warrants were issued for the arrest of Benjamin and Javier Arellano Felix, kingpins of the major drug trafficking syndicate in Baja California. More than two years later, however, the brothers Arellano have yet to be arrested. The brothers are belived to have led the hit squad, with the help of Federal judicial police, who covered their escape from the Guadalajara airport: Upon boarding Aeromexico flight 110 to Tijuana, which had been delayed for more than 20 minutes for their convenience, the brothers produced bogus police credentials. And in Tijuana they walked off the plane without police interference. (In September 1995, another suspect was arrested, Edgar Nicolas Mariscal, a drug trafficker known as "El Negro." When the authorities made the arrest, El Negro was packing an Uzi submachine gun and phoney government credentials.) According to the Los Angeles Times, Mexican officials believe that the Arellano brothers "answer to a silent boss who is more worldly than they are and who has his own banker and legitimate businesses." The Times's sources "declined to reveal the identity of the reputed leader," circumstantial evidence points to Carlos Hank Gonzalez, the billionaire businessman and reputed money launderer who was named tourism secretary and eventually agriculture secretary under President Salinas. A former prosecutor of the Mexican attorney general has described Carlos Hank as "the primary intermediary between the multinational drug trafficking enterprises and the Mexican political system." According to two Aeromexico flight attendants, the younger of Carlos Hank's two sons was seated beside the brothers Arellanos in the first class section of the escape flight from Guadalajara. ACT II Summary On March 23, 1994 at a campaign rally in Tijuana, PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is killed by shots in the head and abdomen. The first official explanation has it that the gunman, Mario Aburto Martinez, is a deranged loner craving notoriety. Official explanation number two--which precipitates a whirlwind succession of procesutors and investigators--is that there was indeed a plot behind the killing. Official explanation number three- -taken up as public confidence in the government plummeted--takes the case back to square one: there was no plot, after all, and therefore no call for widespread public instability. Despite the official position, a preponderance evidence does indeed point to a conspiracy: Colosio's autopsy would show that he had been shot twice and that bullets had entered opposite sides of his body. Videotapes of the shooting show that Colosio did not turn after the first shot, which suggests a second gunman. Commentary Indeed, Tijuana municipal police arrested a second man leaving the rally with blood his clothing. That suspect, Jorge Antonio Sanchez, tested positive for powder burns, and despite his claim that he was nowhere near Colosio, videos confirm that he was in fact close at hand. Oddly, Sanchez was immediately released after the Tijuana police turned him over to the federal authorities. Why? The weekly newsmagazine Proceso reported that Sanchez is an agent of the Center of Investigations and National Security (CISEN), Mexico's equivalent of the CIA. Did Sanchez receive a "Get Out of Jail Free" card because his arrest drew attention to an agency whose operations are overseen by the office of the presidency? Sanchez might have eluded arrest in the first place had not Tijuana's chief of police, Federico Benitez, defied PRI operatives who advised him to let them handle security at the rally. Benitez ignored the PRI warnings and posted his men nearby; it was one of Benitez's officers who collared Sanchez. In the aftermath of the assassination, Benitez began to investigate Colosio's PRI security team, itself. He discovered that the team leader, Jose Rodolfo Rivapalacio, a former state police commander, had a sordid record that included accusations of torture and the attempted murder of his wife. But in April 1994, one month after the Colosio slaying, Benitez was assassinated on the streets of Tijuana in a well- planned ambush. His files on Rivapalacio vanished without a trace from police headquarters. El Presidente Salinas in happier days Why would members of Colosio's own party put out a contract on their popular presidential candidate? (Colosio was also President Salinas's hand-picked successor.) Note that at the time of his assassination, Colosio had given the narco-pols entrenched in the PRI (and their drug cartel patrons) cause for concern. He refused to meet with corrupt former governors, and he declined an invitation to meet with a relative of drug kingpin Juan Garci Abrego. Was Colosio, in breaking with the precedents of previous presidential candidates, planning to bust the profitable PRI-drug trust? In the aftermath of the Colosio assassination, former drug- enforcement czar Eduardo Valle fled to the United States and elaborated on this PRI-Cartel conspiracy theory: Per Valle, the Colosio assassination was engineered by high-ranking members of Salinas's cabinet and their mob associates. (Valle specifically fingers Transportation Minister Emilio Gamboa, and others have accused Carlos Hank Gonzalez of involvement.) Valle, known as "El Buho" (The Owl), claims that the Colosio hit was carried out by members of the Grupo del Gulfo cocaine cartel, with the complicty of the slain candidate's PRI security team. Valle has documented a number of insidious links between Transportation Minister Gamboa and the Grupo del Gulfo and Baja drug cartels. Valle estimates that more than half of Mexico's police chiefs and attorney generals receive illegal payoffs from the drug cartels. If this alliance isn't broken up, Valle warns, the assassinations will continue. ACT III Summary Indeed, the hits keep coming. On September 28, 1994 Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the PRI's secretary general and majority leader-elect of the Chamber of Deputies, is assassinated in Mexico City while leaving a PRI breakfast meeting. The assassin is nabbed after his Uzi jams, and he quickly confesses: He was hired, he says, by an aide to Manuel Murloz Rocha, a PRI congressman and chairman of a committee under the Chamber of Deputies. Murloz Rocha has interesting connections: Not only does he hail from Tamaulipas, the eastern border state that is home of the Grupo del Gulfo, he had previously chaired a congressional committee closely associated with Carlos Hank's Ministry of Agriculture. Unfortunately, Murloz Rocha doesn't get a chance to explain himself; after taking refuge in the home of Raul Salinas, the president's brother, he disappears off the face of the earth, Jimmy Hoffa-style. President Salinas raises eyebrows by appointing Mario Ruiz Massieu, the brother of the murdered secretary general, as the special prosecutor in charge of the official investigation. Ruiz zeroes in on Murloz Rocha, and accuses the elite ranks of the PRI of mounting a coverup. Dramatically, Ruiz Massieu resigns from his post as special prosecutor. Salinas's successor, President Zedillo, feels the need to appoint a member of the opposition party to investigate the assassinations. That attorney general reopens all three major cases, and then, in a shocking move, arrests Raul Salinas, brother of the ex-president. Raul is accused of ordering and financing the assassination of Ruiz Massieu. The drama takes a Shakespearean turn when In March 1995, U.S. officials arrest Mario Ruiz Massieu in Newark, New Jersey, for carrying more than $40,000 in undeclared cash. Ruiz Massieu, fleeing Mexico for Madrid, Spain, is charged by Mexican officials with obstructing the probe of his own brother's murder, collecting bribes from drug traffickers. The implication is that Ruiz Massieu (the living one) had covered up not only the role of drug cartels in the murder of his brother (the dead one), but also the connection of Raul Salinas (and therefore that of Raul's brother, the former president) to the murders. Ruiz Massieu is said to have more than $9 million in unaccounted for funds stashed away in Texas bank accounts. Commentary So what was the motive in the slaying of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu? Raul Salinas--accused of masterminding the killing--was involved in a dispute with Ruiz Massieu that might possibly have involved the ubiquitous Carlos Hank: When he was governor of the state of Guerrero, Ruiz Massieu had thwarted Raul Salinas's attempts to secure government contracts with companies connected to the Hank family. Did Raul Salinas and Hank fear further trouble from Ruiz Massieu, who was about to become majority leader of the Chamber of Deputies? Other motives have been suggested, as well: The Ruiz killing may have been a warning to incoming President Zedillo and his backers (which included dirty money gadabout Carlos Hank) from the drug cartels, to the effect of, "Don't get any dumb ideas about cracking down on your partners, the cartels." Another theory has it that the Ruiz hit was actually payback for the Colosio hit--a vendetta aimed at noneother than Carlos Hank for his suspected role in the Colosio murder. So, take your pick: Carlos Hank is either the perpetrator or the victim--or, perhaps, given the confused world of Mexican drug politics, both. Conclusion Mario Ruiz Massieu remains in U.S. custody; a federal judge recently denied the latest attempts by the Mexican government to extradite its former attorney general. Raul Salinas is locked up in a Mexican jail, awaiting trial. And his beleaguered brother, Carlos Salinas, the former golden boy-turned-laughing stock of Mexican politics, is now hiding out in Canada. The Mexican investigations continue--and so do the rumors, which spread and mutate faster than a philovirus. The skullduggery also continues. Recently, President Zedillo's new federal police chief, Juan Pablo de Tavira, was poisoned in his sleep, shortly before he was to begin a massive cleanup that would have expunged police commanders linked to the drug cartels. The message couldn't be clearer to other would-be reformers. Juan Pablo de Tavira remains paralyzed and unable to speak. There's little chance that Mexican officials will ever get to the bottom of the problem, if only because they are the problem. The underground drug trade is an integral part of Mexico's above- ground economy. During the Salinas administration, economic expedience saw to it that profits from the drug trade were rechanneled into legitimate businesses. Salinas cronies, bent on privatizing the Mexican economy, used these illicit proceeds to fund Mexico's economic development, earning themselves a fortune in kickbacks from their silent partners, the drug cartels. As Latin American policy analyst Christopher Whalen (no relation to the co- author of 60GCAT) notes, "An alliance of convenience has been forged between drug traffickers and technocrats, with the additional upshot that Mexico's financial institutions would lose a great deal if money laundering were halted." So Salinas's "Mexican Miracle" continues, fueled by cocaine profits, enforced by hit squads, protected by backroom bureaucrats. ***** Clearly, the consequences of US policies in Mexico are enormous and very, very complex. How does this bode for National Security State plans to eventually do-away with the Canada and Mexica borders -- esp. considering how much antipathy has been cultivated between Militia-groups and immigrants? Starman <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smokin.gif ALT=":smokin">

On the Border

On the Border

'who was that masked man?'

Nukes across the border? Yeah right

Re: Nukes across the border? Yeah right

South Borderlands Background: Drugs, Assassinations, etc.

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