With the release Friday, August 9, of one of the “founders” of Mexico’s first drug cartel, and a rather leisurely government response to this failure of good sense and common logic, a hefty slice of the media, both here and abroad, are suggesting that it appears as if the “bad old days” of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) are returning with the fresh presidency (December 2012) of Enrique Peña Nieto.
Certainly several recent events have roused dark memories of those who lived through that time of shameless lies and brutal behavior by high Mexican officials in the early 1980s. That menacing chaos spiked with the kidnapping, torture and murder, February 1985, of Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Enrique (“Kiki”) Camarena — and the “disappearance” of several other U.S. citizens.
The Sinaloa cartel jefes migrated to Guadalajara in the 1980s following a ten-million-dollar-a-year, U.S.-backed Mexican military campaign that made life unprofitable for northern drug kingpins.
Jalisco’s governor, Romero Velasco, a tough, pragmatic man, told wealthy Sinaloa newcomers that if they wanted to do business in his bailiwick, they had to keep the streets “clean.” But in 1985, a less commanding mayor, Enrique Alvarez de Castillo, was elected, and things changed. Now and then, a gringo would simply disappear: Caught in the cross-fire of rival drug traffickers; running a tough mouth in the wrong situation, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.In on December 2, 1984, four Jehovah’s Witnesses disappeared. At first, this didn’t rouse deep concern in the foreign community then congregated primarily in Guadalajara. The Jehovah’s Witnesses seemed spottily understood. They were primarily noted for going door-to-door to talk with residents about the latest issue of the sect’s magazine, the Watch Tower. In Catholic Mexico that seemed be a demanding religious errand.
Many houses in Lake Chapala pueblos had a warning nailed to their doors: No aceptamos propaganda Protestante ni de oteras sectas. There were often other warnings: Members of cults are not permitted to enter this house. There seemed to be a general attitude that if you came to such a Catholic country as Mexico to hustle an opposing “cult,” you should expect trouble. As owners of the Reporter at the time, my wife and I asked friends and readers about the Witnesses. As a result when the article on the disappearances was published, a separate description of the religion also appeared.
But the four missing Americans became subjects of increasing official concern, first at the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara, then at the Embassy in Mexico City. This, despite the fact that it remained a small story even north of the border. Even Kiki’s kidnapping and death, said Mexican officials, including President Miguel de la Madrid, was not a national matter, merely a Guadalajara one.
Then two more U.S. citizens disappeared, John Walker and Alberto Radelet. It was later learned they had unknowingly walked into a Rafael Caro Quintero party at the Langosta restaurant. The two gringos looked like DEA to Quintero. That was the last time they were seen alive.
Six U.S. tourists had disappeared earlier, and the foreign community was only slightly ruffled. That was because before Kiki Camarena was kidnapped, U.S. authorities had kept quiet about the disappearances of Walker and Radelet. This reluctance to “rock the boat” was due to the fact that all suspicions the DEA, the U.S. Consulate, even the Embassy in Mexico City harbored, about the implied, or witnessed, depth and reach of corruption among Mexico’s police agencies and its political ranks meant possibly prompting a Mexico-U.S. face-off. Those on the ground here were going to need some kind of local help. They were having difficulty getting Washington’s cooperation. And they needed some event, some revelation of hard proof to demonstrate how corrupt the Mexican government was, something that provided the leverage to wake up Ronald Reagan’s placid administration, including Edwin Meese, one of the president’s closest advisors who was about to become U.S. attorney general February 25.
At that moment, local foreigners did not want to “get mixed up” in Mexico’s internal problems. One of our page one headlines mirrored this: “US-Mexican Drug Clamor Ruffles Tapatios’ Tranquil Environment.” Though stories elsewhere in the paper were getting tougher, we could not print all we knew. The Mexican government did not wish or permit a free press; certainly it would not yet countenance any drug-crime scoops from a regional English-language weekly. Yet it was that language that protected us. We had to send 26 copies of each edition to 26 different government agencies and sub-agencies in Mexico City. Which we obediently did. But when we were going through the endless process of getting permission to buy the Reporter, I had once talked to some of the people assigned to keep tabs on publications such as ours. They were not English speakers, and their large office in a huge pre-Revolutionary building was stacked with publications they were supposed to be monitoring.
Meanwhile, we carefully monitored Mexico’s Spanish language periodicals. If one of them broke a sensitive story, we pounced on it, adding whatever extra reporting we had dug up. If questioned by government sources, we could easily point out that we were just following the lead of the Mexican press.
Permanent foreign residents and tourists — wisely — were publicly circumspect regarding on-going police and political misbehavior. As were the long list of businesses and merchants advertising with the Reporter. It was seen as a governmental problem, a drug cartel problem, an international/bureaucratic problem.
Readers soon realized that a great deal of what was going on was taking place in the shadows. Their opinions were neither sought, nor sanctioned. Most Mexicans and long-time foreign residents encouraged friends and acquaintances to exercise circumspection. Those few who were privy to clear knowledge, and even those used to trading in rumors and gossip, were quiet.
Almost universally, the foreign community, pleased to be enjoying Mexico unmolested, praised its attractions, easy pace and prices — during a time of economic difficulty, the advantages of living here on dollars was emphasized — the climate, stunning vistas, historically handsome architecture. They quietly blessed the fate that kept them apart from drug lords and any tangles with law enforcement. Worry was shifted into prudence. Politeness was wisely seen as a way of maintaining this comfortable balance. Some foreigners left, most stayed, and a dented Mexican economy continued to make life pleasant for all who lived on dollars.