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.
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