note- Since this article was written, there is a new administration in Mexico, lead by President Fox, which appears to be following in its predecessors' footsteps with rampant corruption in all areas of drug enforcement. Keep in mind that if the drugs can flow across the border into the US, so too can the corruption. The US prohibitionist soldiers are no more immune to corruption than their southern counterparts.

The Bottomless Mexican Drug War Pit

By Preston Peet (Feb. 1999)

Now that the impeachment hearings are over, it is time to start worrying about what is really screwing up this country, like those evil drugs.

ABC News broadcast a story on their World News, February 15, about how the governor of Quintana Roo, Mexico, Mario Villanueva Madrid, is under investigation for his helping to facilitate the smuggling of drugs, particularly cocaine, up from Columbia, up to the Yucatan peninsula, then into the USA.

Clinton had just finished a two day meeting with Ernesto Zedillio, discussing the upcoming recertifying of Mexico by the United States as a cooperative drug- fighting nation. CNN, the same evening as the ABC broadcast, said that Clinton is hinting that in spite of decreased seizures of drugs, and massive corruption among Mexico's police and anti-drug forces, he will most likely recertify Mexico. This is very important obviously for a country that receives as much in aid as they do from US taxpayers.

In 1997 the US anti-drug aid to Mexico rose to $78 million, from just $10 million in 1995.1 In 1996 Clinton imposed economic sanctions against Columbia when Mexico's track record was equally sorry. But the year before, the US had loaned Mexico $13 Billion to help it stave off economic disaster, and therefore couldn't very well turn around and declare Mexico an enemy in the fight against drugs.

The United States has a long history of supporting crooked regimes in Mexico, praising their efforts to cooperate with our drug eradication programs, while our corporate interests loot the country's coffers, hand in hand with Mexico's elite.

Carlos Salinas de Gortari came from a background of power, and government ran in the family. His father served as minister of industry and finance. Carlos himself served as cabinet secretary for programs and budgets.2 In spite of signs of massive vote fraud, and tampering with the results, including the suspension of the vote tally, due to the crashing of the electoral computer system, Salinas was swept into power with 52 percent of the vote, in 1988, for a six year term.

Voices were raised in praise of this new, more cooperative Mexican leader here in the United States. And it's no wonder. Salinas was instrumental in crushing land reforms, and focused on privatizing The Mexican economy. He opened a floodgate of foreign investment, and was the driving force behind the ratifying of NAFTA.

Of course the rumors and charges of corruption and complicity in the drug trade by the Salinas government were hushed up, brushed aside by US officials in the Bush (the first) and Clinton administrations. As one Mexican paper, The daily El Financero, reported, "...up to 95 percent of the people working in the attorney generals office had been bribed by the Gulf Cartel, run by Juan Garcia Abrego."3

By the time Carlos Salinas left office, he and his brother Raul had looted the country of all the money they could get their hands on. Using the US owned Citibank to launder massive amounts of illicitly gained drug profits, the two brother amassed an estimated $6 billion dollar fortune between them both.

Raul Salinas was arrested in Mexico City for murder in February of 1995. While his brother Carlos enjoys the life of a jet- setting playboy, enjoying the plunders he accrued while in office, Raul sits in jail for conspiring to murder his brother's hand picked successor.

The Swiss government closed a money laundering investigation last October, 1998 they were conducting against Raul. The Federal Prosecutors office there implicated him in running a drug smuggling ring, but due to his being in a Mexican jail under charges, they can not extradite him to stand trial in Switzerland. Besides the $90 million already confiscated from Swiss bank accounts, Switzerland asked Britain to block a $ 24 million bank account in London. Supposedly this money is part of an estimated $700 million that Raul received for his assistance in getting both heroin and cocaine into the USA, using his family connections to facilitate the process. Even if Raul Salinas is acquitted of all charges in Mexico, he will have to prove that the money was made legally before the Swiss banks will release it back into his hands.4

The current government of Ernesto Zedillo came into power in 1994, and continued in a similar fashion to his predecessors. More and more foreign investment, trampling of human rights, and utter disregard for doing much of anything to interdict the rampant drug flow through Mexico into the USA. Though he promised to clean up the government, there are still numerous reports of high level corruption coming out of Mexico.

In January, 1996, Juan Garcia Abrego, the head of the Gulf Cartel, was captured in a raid praised by Mexican and US officials alike. The man who led the mission to capture this hardened criminal was Horacio Brunt Acosta, aka the "Commander". According to the Mexico City Reforma, a new drug trafficking cartel has emerged since then. 5 The head of this "new" cartel is Horatio Brunt Acosta, a man hailed as a hero both here and in Mexico. Documents supplied by Mexican government intelligence say that as far back as 1993, while working for the Attorney General's Office, (PRG), he was trafficking in both cocaine, and marijuana. Three years later he arrested Juan Garcia Abrego. Brunt was the intelligence director of the National Institute for Combating Drugs, (INCD), from May 1994, to March 1996.6

Not that he is the first to switch from the law enforcement side to the law breaking side, but what is different about his operation, according to the reports Reforma had in their possession, is that he is operating from inside the US, in various US cities. Places like Yuma, Arizona, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as several spots in Texas. 6a

When he arrested Abrega, Brunt was awarded a $2 million reward offered by the Mexican government. He also received a payment of nearly $500,000 from Amado Carrillo Fuentes, which, according to US intelligence sources, was for doing away with a rival, thinning out the competition.7

There was also the case of General Gutierrez Rebollo, who was arrested by Mexican authorities right at the beginning of the debate in 1997, in Washington, of whether to recertify Mexico that year. Rebollo pushed for increased military aid to Mexico, to help combat the drug trade. In 1996, the US and the Pentagon started a new $28 million program to train 1,100 Mexican soldiers a year on US bases.8 This is of course just the thing that our government loves to do, what with the amount of money to be made through military contracts.

Rebollo toured Washington in late January, 1997, meeting congressmen, military men, and had lunch at the White House. The US Drug Czar, Gen. Barry McCaffery, sang his praises at an awards banquet in the White House, saying that Rebollo, "...had a reputation of being an honest man who is a no-nonsense commander of the Mexican army who's now been sent to bring the police force the same kind of aggressiveness and reputation he had in uniform."9

Five days after this, Rebollo was under arrest in Mexico City, on charges that he had accepted bribes from Amado Carillo Fuentes, the same Fuentes that paid the reward to Brunt for getting rid of a competitor. Rebollo had cars, apartments and cash, way above and beyond his means as an officer of the law, which drew the attention of investigators.

Once in jail, Rebollo began to talk.

In statements Rebollo made to the Public Prosecutor's office, he implicated Fernando Velasco Marquez, the father-in-law of Ernesto Zedillo, in being involved in drug trafficking. Velasco Marquez denied it, saying that he did not know Rebollo, nor did he know why the man would say such things. 9a

The Attorney General of the Armed Forces in Mexico challenged Rebollo's statements, describing them as, "...merely personal assessments...", that he, "...is trying to call attention to something that has no great relevance to the legal suit being brought him...", and said that Rebollo's attacks on the President and his family were, "..reprehensible...", and that," his intentions are malicious."9b

Rebollo also alleged that the director of the Federal Judicial Police, (PFJ), General Guilermo Alvarez, was collaborating with Amado Carillo Fuentes, because upon his arrest, Fuentes had credentials identifying himself with that department, signed by that military officer.10

Now on the news here in the US, on television just the other evening, there was mention of the investigation into alleged corruption in Quintana Roo, Mexico, and about the involvement of that state's governor with the Juarez Cartel. It seems that every year about this time Mexico will drag some high ranking officer or other in, charge him with all kinds of collusion with these mysterious cartels, then sit down at the negotiating table with US officials a couple weeks later with their requests for more arms, money, and equipment, because as anyone can see, they are serious about combating the drug lords. Meanwhile the next guy is in place, receiving his handouts from both the US government, and from the big crime syndicates.

Articles were published a good year ago in The Mexican newspaper Reforma which stated that reports of an investigation by the PRG into allegations of connections to the Juarez cartel by Mario Villanueva Madrid were in fact already in progress. "There is very specific evidence of his connection with the Juarez cartel, and a request will be made to expand the investigation," the paper quoted an unnamed source as saying.

The PGR was investigating Juarez cartel connections along the Mexican Caribbean coast. The report was alleged to say that legal action could be expected against the governor at any time throughout 1998. Reforma went on to state that according to two other reports, one Mexican, and the other from unnamed international agencies, which Reforma had published on Dec. 13, that Villanueva Madrid had "maintained connections" with top cartel bosses of the Juarez cartel since he became governor in 1993.11

The same day, Dec. 22, 1997, Reforma published an article in which Villanueva was quoted as saying the paper was behaving in a reckless and irresponsible manner, and that reports of connections to traffickers were made in a, "libelous and slanderous" way. 12

These charges were leveled by the Reforma over a year ago, months before last year's recertifying of Mexico. Yet Clinton still praised Mexico, and the great job it was doing to combat the flow of drugs across the border into the States. It's just now being reported here in the US, and still it's being discussed as though there were still a question of whether to charge Villanueva or not. Clinton signed the certification last year, and sure enough, he signed it again this year as well.

Now Villanueva has been voted out of office, and replaced with another PRI condidate, Joaquin Hendriks, who just won the governor's race with 43 percent of the vote. The New York Times reported in their Tuesday, Feb. 23 edition that the governing party of Mexico had won 2 state votes, but failed to mention the fact that Villanueva, who was also a member of the ruling PRI, was under investigation. The Times did make a brief allusion to the fact that there are wide spread reports of corruption, but then immeditately put the blame for the oppositions losing the majority of the elections due to frations within the opposition camps, divisions that divide them and weaken therir chances to out vote the PRI. The PRI have ruled Mexico since the 1920's, but that's no cause for alarm, nor is it suspicious to the New Yourk Times, nor to the politicians who decide "whether or not to recertify Mexico, again and again.

More money will flow South of the border, and more Mexican soldiers will be trained by US soldiers, who have such a great track record of keeping drugs out of the USA already. I would hope that the Mexicans could see that these are not the best teachers for a successful drug war strategy. Although the idea has been posited that a lot of the helicopters, and guns, and money, all go towards suppressing the Zapitista Uprising, and any other suspected dissidence, rather than on drug interdiction.

Unless of course the interdicting is being done on one's rivals.

Seventeen US military bases were selected for training the 1,100 Mexican soldiers that are being sent up North every year, thanks to the program initiated in 1996 by the Pentagon.

Officers from a new Mexican anti-drug strike force called the Airmobile Special Forces, or GAFE, went to Ft. Bragg, in North Carolina, for a twelve week training course, under the watchful eyes of the US 7th Special Forces Group, an army covert operation unit. 13 There the Mexicans were taught to make bombs, carry out helicopter assaults and counter insurgency operations, and taught intelligence techniques. 14

Though the Pentagon stressed that the training program was only for use in the drug war effort, there was nothing to keep the Mexicans from using their new skills for other things, such as putting down rebellions, or even to go into the trade for themselves.

In September 1997, two Mexican pilots who had just finished their training in the US were arrested along with sixteen other agents of the counter-narcotics force, flying a military plane from Chiapas to Mexico City full of cocaine.

In 1997, a special report put out by McCaffery's office, on the results of the training program, could not identify one seizure of cocaine of any significance at all, nor any arrests of any major dealers or drug barons by the GAFE.15

Gen. McCaffery said that it "wasn't his business" how other countries managed their drug war strategies, even after numerous reports of crimes and corruption came North from Mexico. As of October 3, 1997, there were at least 35 trials under way of military officers accused of working with or for alleged links, with drug cartels. More than 100 officers have been removed from their posts already. 15

The week before, the National Defense Commission of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies demanded that the Armed Forces be "purged" to remove links to drug gangs. Deputy Carmen Sefura was quoted as saying that the army and various political organizations should be purged as well, making the case that people have been aware of the problem for quite some time in Mexico.16

So why is our government willing to give more and more money to a country with such a record of corruption and lack of dedication to a real effort towards stopping the flow of drugs North? Could it be that there are more agencies involved than just those of Mexico? Agencies here in the US even? The past fifty years have seen again and again the involvement of the CIA in the global drug trade. There is also the unfortunate truth to the fact that our government is renowned throughout the rest of the world, even if it is not reported on here in the US so often, for supporting repressive, right-wing, totalitarian governments, and for fomenting revolution and terrorism against those governments that don't, or won't, buckle under Washington's "rule of law", and the New World Order.

Then there is the issue of Columbia, which Washington decertified March 1, 1997. Now where are those people going to get the money to make up for all the millions that they got used to receiving from our government here? Where else but through the production, and trafficking of drugs. So Washington created another problem, almost as if they were creating a new enemy for our military to want to deal with, sometime in the not-too-distant future.

In a commentary by Jaime Sanchez Susarrey, a research professor at University of Guadalajara, in the Mexico City Reforma, (March 1, 1997), The point was made that, "It was a serious mistake to involve the army in drug enforcement. No general can withstand a barrage of 50,000 pesos, (old pesos), much less one of $5 million." They were supposed to be the last resort, after all else failed, but now the military is, instead of being part of the cure, worse than the disease.17

If one takes a quick glance, not even a long hard look is necessary, it is obvious that there is something wrong. Our government is willing to hand over millions and millions of dollars to a foreign power to arm itself, and is willing to train that power's soldiers our techniques for fighting a dirty, covert, secret war, and yet is not getting any bang for the bucks. Clinton, and McCaffery shrug off the rumors and reports of collusion between the Mexican government, the drug cartels, and the trials and convictions of US trained, Mexican officer after officer, smiling into the cameras, telling us here that everything is alright in the world, it's all under control.

Our newspapers and network news shows all accept the spin thrown them by analysts and generals, taking in the empty words like "National Security", and "Drug War", and "Narco Terrorists", used to justify the wasted expenditures, then regurgitate it all back out onto an apathetic populace, lulled by the promise of more products to buy, and by the drugs that come over the border between Mexico and the US by the ton every day.

1 "Whiteout-CIA, Drugs, and the Press", Cockburn, Alexander, and St. Clair, Jeffrey, Verso, 1998, pg. 372
2 ibid. pg. 356
3 ibid. pg. 361
4 "Swiss Close Drugs Probe Into ex-Mexican President's Brother, Bern Swiss Radio International, Oct. 21, 1998, from documents obtained via the World News Connection, A Foreign News Service of the US Government
5 "Rise of New Drug Cartel Cited", Jacoba Cesar Romero, Mexico City Reforma (Internet Version), Feb. 20, 1998, from documents obtained via the World News Connection
6 ibid.
6a ibid.
7 ibid.
8 Op. cit. no. 1, pg. 373 9 ibid. pg. 374 9a "Zidillo In-Law Denies Drug Connections", Zervantes, Topiltzin Ochoa, Mexico City La Jornada (Internet Version), Sept. 2
9, 1997, obtained via the World News Connection
9b "Zedillo Family Members' Drug Ties Alleged", Castillo, Gustavo, Mexico City La Lornada( Internet Version, Sept. 24, 1997, obtained via the World News Connection
10 Ibid.
11 "PGR Drug Case Outlined Against Governor", Hernandez, Luis Guillermo, Mexico City Reforma, Dec. 22, 1997, obtained via World News Connection n Ibid.
12 "Governor Rejects Report of PGR Drug Case", McNaught, Hugo Martinez, Mexico City Reforma, Dec. 22, 1997, obtained via World News Connection.
13 Op.cit.no, l,pg.373
14 Ibid.pg.373
15 Ibid.pg.374
16 Ibid.pg.374 1(3 "Call Cartel Member Says Mexican Drug Lord Visited Peru", Retegui, Cesar, Lima Expreso(Interner Version), Oct., 3, 1997, obtained via World News Connection
17 "Drug Issues, Legalization Examined", Susarrey, Jaime Sanchez, Mexico City Reforma, (Internet Version), March 1, 1997, obtained via the World News Connection