- (June 2000)
Mexico debuts democracy.
For the first time in 71 years the ruling PRI has been defeated in a national
election. Ernesto Zedillo will be succeeded by Vicente Fox, leader of the
Partido de Acion Nacional. This ends one of the most corrupt and inefficient
regimes, that has wasted the most favorable location in the world (next door
to the United States) and enhanced only the economic prospects of druglords.
- (March 1998)
The drug war was won by Mexico.
It is obvious that the Mexican cartels have taken over the Colombian cartels.
How did that happen? The D.E.A. has allowed (if not masterminded) this
succession of power. First, it persecuted the Colombian druglords until they
gave up. Note that they are still in business, they still control the same
plantations and they still run their operations from the same centers of power.
They simply decided to give up defying the United States authorities.
Second, the D.E.A. has allowed (or not been able to contain) the rise of the
Mexican cartels, long run by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who died recently bestowing
a huge and wealthy empire on Rafael Munoz Talavera. During the previous
mexican administration, relationships between the Mexican and U.S. drug
agencies were cordial. Now we know that the Mexican agencies were (and still
are) highly corrupted, and that officials close to the previous government
were involved in narcotraffic. Somehow, this led to the triumph of the
Mexican cartels, which now run most of the cocaine business in the U.S.
Complicity by the U.S. authorities is at least to be suspected: first, they
never persecuted the Mexicans the way they persecuted the Colombians; second,
the police (in 1989) did arrest Rafael Munoz Talavera, when they seized 21
tons of cocaine in a Los Angeles warehouse. But Munoz was rapidly acquitted
and released. Today, he enjoys a multi-billion dollar business empire, and
no animosity with the D.E.A.
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