MEXICO CITY dpa – Mexican revolutionary war general and later president Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928) was once reputed to have stated that no general in his country could withstand “a cannonade of 50,000 pesos”.
Today, it is not known just how much money the country’s narcotics mafia paid Brigadier General Ricardo Martinez Perea so that they can wheel and deal so freely in the northeastern border town of Camargo.
But the allegation that he was in the services of the so-called “Gulf cartel” led earlier in April to Martinez’ arrest along with two further officers.
Martinez is not the first high-ranking Mexican military man believed to have changed sides in the battle against the drugs mafia. Several powerful cartels in Mexico are involved in organising the smuggling of South American cocain to the United States, reaping billions of pesos’ worth of profits.
The mafias spend huge sums of money bribing policemen and politicians alike and, under the slogan “plata o plomo” – silver or lead – they eliminate anybody who gets in their way. The Gulf Cartel, derived from the Gulf of Mexico name, controls the eastern part of the country.
Early in April, Gilberto Garcia Mena was arrested as one of the suspected leaders of the cartel. But to date, none of the spectacular arrests, such as that in 1996 of the cartel’s long-standing leader, Garcia Abrego, ever succeeded in destroying the gang. New leaders always kept emerging.
The same applies to the Juarez Cartel, based in the northern border town Ciudad Juarez. It was built up by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, a man dubbed the “master of the skies” because of all the airoplanes he owned.
In 1997 Carillo Fuentes died while undergoing an operation with which, by means of facial surgery, he had intended to change his appearance.
Three of the doctors involved in the operation were later murdered. Their corpses were found encased in barrels of cement and deposited at rest stops along the Mexico City-Acapulco superhighway.
A few months before Carillo Fuentes’ death, General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, at the time Mexico’s top anti-narcotics crime fighter, was arrested.
Gutierrez Rebollo, in the meantime sentenced to a 75-year prison term, was found to have protected Carillo Fuentes from prosecution while operating against his competitors.
In the Oscar-winning film “Traffic”, the character of “General Salazar” is modelled on Gutierrez Rebollo.
Like his predecessors, the new Mexican president, Vicente Fox, has declared war on the drugs mafia. The former opposition politician, with his election victory last year ended the more than 70-year reign of the Party of the Institutionalised Revolution (PRI).
In the words of newspaper columnist Sergio Aguayo, it was under the PRI’s rule that “a network of immunity from punishment, corruption and indifference” evolved in Mexico.
Fox, in a novel development, has named a special envoy in the battle against corruption. But this official could not prevent what happened in January, when a drug boss, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman managed to escape from a high-security prison.
Before his escape, Guzman was said to have distributed millions of pesos among the corrupt officials and prison wardens. There is still no trace of Guzman.
