Nor Accuser, Nor Crime, But You're Guilty

Table of Contents
About This Book
Prologue
by Roderic A. Camp, Professor of Journalism
Claremont College, Claremont California
On Character Defamation
by Fausto Fernández Ponte, Journalist
Mexico City
Foreword
by Keith Rosenblum
Chapter I: In Search of the Story
Chapter II: Plenty of Rumor but No Evidence
Chapter III: Where Leaks Spring
Chapter IV: Where Does a Wronged Foreigner Turn?
Chapter V: Governing a Mexican State in the 1990’s
Chapter VI: A Governor Acts Against a Trafficker
Chapter VII: What the Press Says
Chapter VIII: The Media Flurry Before Certification
Chapter IX: Paragraph by Paragraph: What the New York Times said
Chapter X: Does the NYT Fulfill Its Pledges to the Reader?
What Phil Jordan says about the allegations against Governor Beltrones
A report by ex-DEA agent and former director of El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC),
about the New York Times allegations against Governor Beltrones
What others say about the New York Times allegations
List of those contacted
Annex
About Keith Rosenblum
About this book in Spanish

About this book
“I’ve had my own problems with The New York Times and their underhanded
reporting techniques. I don’t pretend to know what is going on at DEA, but what I
heard through the grapevine was that this was a set-up…a smear campaign. That
unethical people in Washington, the usual Mexico-bashers with an ax to grind
against the country, turned this over to the newspaper, which, in turn, published
baseless accusations as though they were irrefutable facts.”
Bruce Babbitt
Former Secretary of the Interior, ex-Governor of Arizona
Five years ago, The New York Times published a series that depicted a
Mexico steeped in narcotics-based corruption. The series won a 1998 Pulitizer
Prize, the highest honor for American journalists.
One of the eight articles submitted by the Times dealt with Gov. Manlio
Fabio Beltrones of Sonora. The story, based almost entirely on anonymous sources
and supposed information from US law enforcement, said the governor was
collaborating with Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Mexico's premier trafficker. (Carrillo
Fuentes has since died.) An article favorable to Gov. Beltrones was excluded from
the entry, as was a letter from Beltrones with an unusually conciliatory, even
exculpatory headline
In this text, Keith Rosenblum, a freelance writer, former reporter and
congressional press secretary, analyzes the Times story word-for-word and points
out lies, deliberate deceptions and innuendo. Rosenblum explains, in simple terms,
how arguably the world's most influential print publication sacrificed norms of
journalistic integrity in a story about a foreign official.
The author explains how and why he agreed to undertake a research project
funded by the party accused, and how much he was paid. He adds, too, that the
accused party exercised no editorial control over the final product.
This is not a text of conjecture or speculation. The author interviewed three
US Ambassadors to Mexico; a dozen State Department officials; Drug

Enforcement Administration (DEA) representatives; an array of Mexican and US
government and law enforcement agents; academics; journalists from both nations;
criminals; and ordinary citizens.
Based on research performed since 1998, the author smoothly fuses the
knowledge of such disparate sources. What emerges is a clear and troubling
indictment of the journalistic process and, secondarily, the information-gathering
canons of law enforcement, as well.
The topic is a serious one. Yet Rosenblum uses humor and common sense
as effective tools to highlight (and deride) the flawed reasoning, superficiality and
foibles of the Times reporters.
"Whether war is waged against narcotics traffickers, terrorists, drunken
drivers or jaywalkers, it is already a lost cause if, in the zeal to pursue victory, the
very rights that underpin a democracy are trampled in the name of expediency," he
writes.
No Accuser, Nor Crime, But You're Guilty is a must-read for students of the
Mexican political system, journalists and fair-minded citizens of Mexico and the
United States.
It is also very much a work in progress. The US government, insisting that
revelation of information about Beltrones would be a risk to national security, has
refused to provide access to all files that might once and for all resolve the
question of a man’s innocence. The files that it has provided under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) are irrelevant, laughable and, in the end, depressing. (The
recipient of these files can only pray that Mexico is but a training ground for US
intelligence elsewhere.)
The New York Times -- basing its reporting entirely on US government
sources -- says a man is guilty. Herein is an analysis of that verdict. What is
contained in those records that may reveal the truth? We may learn the truth
tomorrow, in 20 years -- or never.

Prologue by Roderick A. Camp
The media have played a significant and admirable role in the war
against drugs, both in the United States and in Mexico. In Mexico, individual
reporters have put their lives on the line to investigate drug traffickers, and to
identify connections between the drug families and corrupt officials.
Foreign media coverage also has reinforced attention on this
significant national security issue for Mexico and the United States. Although
typically the media contributes positively to exploring these issues, there may
be cases where accusations of alleged drug ties or drug-related corruption are aired
in the media, resulting in tarnishing individual reputations. Many of these
allegations come from unidentified sources, in some cases, from criminals who are
testifying in court, or to drug enforcement agents who have spoken off the record.
Such allegations may be damaging to individual reputations, and public officials
appear guilty by association. Mentioning a single name in an article where such
allegations arise may permanently harm an individual's reputation.
Roderic A. Camp, Professor of Journalism
Claremont College
Claremont, California
April 2001

On Character Defamation by Fausto Fernández Ponte
Public personages -- artists, writers, athletes, politicians, etc. -- are
vulnerable by definition. As in a museum diorama, they are exposed to the
curiosity and interest of others.
Public figures are objects of scrutiny, which, as a rule, does not derive from
processes of rational awareness, nor is it the result of objective discernment.
Those beings, thus exposed because of their position and activities, or their
personal and professional successes and failures, stir deep emotions along the
variegated spectrum of feelings, from admiration and inspiration to envy,
resentment, and animosity; from grudge-holding to rivalry. They summon forth
animosities, some gratuitous, others personal, deliberately premeditated. They
allow plotting and perfidy to thrive perversely.
Human nature is such that that gamut of emotions could be explained
philosophically. Consequently, contumacious assault on reputation is one of the
risks that face the prominent and the celebrated. It is the anthropological
underpinning of the enemy, be it gratuitous or intentional. It is the deontology of
enmity.
Personal enmity works with a strategic advantage, since the objective of the
enemy -- because of his visibility -- is quite vulnerable. Fame, to be sure,
symbolizes power, but it does not grant it in real terms. On the contrary, it
immobilizes. That salient projection of the public figure makes him an easy target.
As a politician, Manlio Fabio Beltrones has been a public figure for years
and therefore, a vulnerable person. Vulnerable to calumny, defamation, ambush,
and dethronement; vulnerable to perfidy and spontaneous harassment engendered
by the moment, hence gratuitous by definition. Vulnerable to aggression, which is
understood as a concerted, planned act; in short, a consequence of a given bias.

Non-gratuitous animosities likewise derive from the reaction of people who
perceive themselves to be affected or who consider themselves victims. There
could be no doubt that Mr. Beltrones himself is aware that some of his decisions as
a politician exercising his constitutional powers as governor and an official of the
federal government, might have stirred up a hornet's nest among the powerful
who, installed within the contours of administrative or coercive powers, operate on
the fringes of the law.
Gratuitous or premeditated, the enemies of public figures have a historical
framework based on experience. One can say of a public figure anything he wants
-- simply because it has always been done. It seems to be a premise: if you are a
personality, anyone can slander you publicly in the media -- whether print or
Hertzian -- or on the internet or in pamphlets, and even in the agora. To undo the
lie is more costly than lying.
This book, in our opinion, has the enormous merit of placing in a causal
perspective the monstrous calumnies that have wronged Mr. Beltrones, spread by
an influential newspaper -- The New York Times -- which, given the laxity and
absence of professional rigor of the material distributed, suggests a complicity, not
of omission, but of commission.
That venerable newspaper fell into the commission of a grave error -- that
of trying to destroy, for obscure motives, the reputation and dignity of a man --
Mr. Beltrones -- and neutralize his moral and ethical capital as a politician and
public figure. That action by the Times seems morally criminal to us.
The book of the journalist, Keith Rosenblum, is an uncommon effort,
zealous, carefully documented, serious, to undo a monstrous injustice based on
false premises and without methodological solidity. The rigorous performance of
this Arizona journalist is an exercise in contrasts against the deficient and
irresponsible work of the Times. Keith offers this newspaper an exemplary model
of how journalistic work should be performed, which is to faithfully record
history.

The moral is that the written word is susceptible to manipulation for ends
that are not those of enlightening the reader, rather of destroying with slander
public figures like Mr. Beltrones who, through the turn of events, were in the
worst place to have enemies.
Mr. Rosenblum's book, therefore, has a documentary value that is at the
same time historical. It is the history of calumny, the unveiling of its motives, and
the intelligent, valorous response of the victim.
Fausto Fernández Ponte
Mexico City, July 2002

Foreword by Keith Rosenblum
This is not a book that will exonerate or condemn. That it would be so easy.
It is not a text that will nullify the axiom: “You can prove only what you
are, not what you are not.”
Rather, it is a research project undertaken in the defense of two
fundamental rights of those alleged to have done something wrong: “What am I
accused of doing?” And, “Who is my accuser?”
No one disputes that society’s attempts to eliminate drug-addiction
constitutes a noble struggle. The casualties to date and those to come need not be
enumerated, for the citizen that cares about his society, and tomorrow’s is well
aware. Great division exists within society as to whether this initiative is best
fought against those supplying marijuana, cocaine and other narcotics or to fight
against those on the streets of urban America, the suburbs or the corporate
boardrooms -- who are creating the demand.
Yet, whether this battle is waged against narcotics traffickers, terrorists,
drunken drivers or jaywalkers, it is already a lost cause if, in the zeal to pursue
victory, the very rights that underpin a democracy are trampled in the name of
expediency.
What motivated this research were accusations printed in, arguably, the
world’s most influential medium, The New York Times. In February of 1997, the
Times published a series of eight articles that, a year later, were awarded the
Pulitzer Prize, the highest distinction awarded a journalistic endeavor.
The accusations were leveled by reporters with no first-hand knowledge of
wrong-doing. The accusations, they acknowledge before a Mexican investigative
body, are based entirely on “narratives of a third party.” The Times was merely a
medium. Within the author’s constraints, these accusations are addressed.

The research provides little closure. Efforts to obtain any information from
the US government, supposedly the source for much of the story, have been
rejected under the broad shield of “national security.”
Let’s get this straight. Information about a guy that most DEA and other US
government agents haven’t ever heard of is being held up because its “disclosure
could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national
security” of the United States?
Or could it be that the US intelligence aparatus hides behind a clause of the
law in order not to embarass itself by its very lack of proof? Why be suspicious?
One need look no further than the list of civil rights leaders and others about
whom government gathered a wealth of information, though much turned out to be
erroneous and revealed no wrong-doing.
The Times reporters themselves took the posture that journalists so piously
criticize: both refused to comment and they referred queries to the newspaper’s
attorney.
One of the reporters, Craig Pyes, initially agreed to answer questions, but
declined (a year later) after receiving a questionnaire.
Clearly, the path to the truth for one man to recover his reputation and
integrity may be long and obstructed. It may never occur.
Still, such lack of fruition would not make this examination futile.
For what is true is that the information that appeared in the Times story in
no way sustains its original thesis -- the guilt of the governor. Is there other
evidence? The reader can only wonder -- and when a reader is put in that bizarre
position, an abrogation of the most basic tenet of journalistic fairness has taken
place.
The recognition accorded the Times with a Pulitzer Prize is impressive to
lay people -- but answers no questions. In fact, it raises some.
The newspaper, in a flagrant violation of the Prize competition, did not
include any stories that were favorable to the governor. Moreover, it did not

submit a letter published by the Times after a meeting with Beltrones, his lawyers
and Times lawyers. That letter, headlined “Mexican official had no tie to drug
trafficker,” was entirely out of character for the Times. To those who read the
paper regularly, such a headline would normally carry an attribution in the
headline, rather than a negation of its work. Typically, such a letter would be more
likely to read: “Governor claims he had no tie to drug trafficker.”
Why would a paper with ostensibly strict standards of accuracy omit this
information? Why would it conceal from the Pulitzer jury information that might
cast the governor in a positive light? Or information about an investigation, albeit
it in Mexico, that absolved the governor and found the reporters had committed
criminal libel.
Each of the five members of the Pulitzer jury, which makes its decision
from the Pulitzer headquarters at Columbia University in New York, received
copies of a letter of protest from the governor to university president, George
Rupp. (See Annex)
The jury included James F. Hoge, Jr, editor, Foreign Affairs; Jaqui
Banazynski, senior editor for enterprise, The Oregonian; John Hughes, editor, The
Desert News; Robert G. Kaiser, managing editor; and Thomas Kent, international
editor, Associated Press.
The only response came from Pulitzer administrator, Seymour Topping,
acknowledging the correspondence. In a later interview, Topping, a former Times
editor, would emphasize that Pulitzer juries cannot possibly verify the information
contained in stories but, instead, leave that responsibility to the newspapers
themselves.
The history of the use of the press in Mexico is a history of false
accusations and rumors in order to weaken or disqualify a foe. When American
media, which enjoy a broad credibility with Mexicans, pick up and disseminate
this information, it often becomes instantly credible.

Let’s suppose this information was false. Now, who would be among the
beneficiaries? In the political backdrop of 1997, there were innumerable rivals
concerned about the trajectory of a governor -- a man described by the Times as “a
rising star” about to finish his mandate.
It is conceivable that no information will surface to condemn or exculpate.
Yet, the mere review of such an accusation is healthy to societies that profess
fairness and justice.
As such, this analysis should be viewed as how the struggle of one man
affects the right of any man or woman to live free of false witness or hearsay.
Keith Rosenblum
Tucson, Arizona
August 2002

Chapter I
In Search of the Story
“I kept Craig (Pyes, the New York Times writer) company and I watched as he
sought corroboration of his information, person after person. It just didn’t
happen. It was frustrating, for he was confident that he held the truth in his hand
and yet we got “no’ after “no.’ When Craig left, I would describe his attitude as
encabronado (pissed off, angry).”
Araceli Martínez, former reporter
El Imparcial newspaper, Ciudad Obregón, Sonora
In January of 1997, Craig Pyes, a free-lance writer working on assignment
for The New York Times, made the rounds in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, a
prosperous city of some 400,000 in northwestern Mexico, some 300 miles from
the Arizona border.
Pyes had been working on a series that the Times intended to publish soon
that would ostensibly detail the corruption of Mexican government, from the
highest federal levels to city mayors and municipal police forces.
Pyes had worked previously as a freelancer for the Los Angeles Times and
NBC. While still at the LA Times, Pyes had proposed this story but the idea had
been rejected. Now, Pyes was joined on this project by Times reporters Sam
Dillon and Julia Preston, each employees of the New York paper.
The interviews in Ciudad Obregón carried Pyes to several key political and
law enforcement figures.
Among them:
• Adalberto Rosas, a former member of Mexico’s major political
opposition, National Action Party, or PAN, who was mayor of Ciudad Obregón
and a former candidate for senate in a race against the current governor, Manlio
Fabio Beltrones, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as PRI,
the dominant or “ruling” party for the last seven decades;

• Noe Carrizosa, a former police chief of Obregón who had been allied with
Rosas, and who during 1995 and 1996 was a Federal Judicial Police officer, anti-
narcotics police in Sonora; he is now involved in private security work;
• Araceli Martínez, the Obregón correspondent for El Imparcial, Sonora’s
principal daily newspaper, which is allied with PAN;
• José Antonio Gándara, an opposition deputy of PAN and resident of
Obregón who had occupied one of the highest posts in the Office of the Federal
Attorney General.
Pyes spent a week in Obregón, for this was a city where drug runners could,
simultaneously, seek anonymity amongst the masses, invest drug money or
launder it in banks that handled ample numbers of prosperous and legitimate
enterprises.
The free-lancer worked from intelligence data provided to him by a number
of sources including the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Consulate of the
United States in nearby Hermosillo; El Imparcial; and the political opposition,
principally, the PAN.
The data, including some 200 pages of reports that ranged from anecdotal
information published in newspapers to sworn accounts of paid informers, drew
stark conclusions about both the pervasive presence of narcotics traffickers in the
border state and the extent to which corruption -- generally bribes to public
officials to passively or aggressively protect traffickers -- had permeated
government.
That information about Beltrones, the 43-year-old governor, was contained
in the reports should not have been a surprise.
There has not been a governor of Sonora, Sinaloa, Baja California,
Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon or Tamaulipas -- all states close to the US -- who, in

recent history, has not been linked to narcotics traffickers. Beltrones, who had
spent his entire working life in government, had been in office more than five
years now.
The charge that a governor is linked to narcotics trafficking, substantiated
or not, ludicrous or not, comes with the turf. Since the US government focused its
drug-trafficking interdiction efforts in Southern Florida several years ago, it is a
fact that narcotics shipments from South America had been rerouted through each
of these states. Once a party is named by an informant, the information is logged
into a US government computer.
The trip to Obregon came in the aftermath of Pyes’ visit to Hermosillo, an
industrialized transportation and commercial hub of about 700,000 people that is
the capital of Sonora.
There, Pyes had met, among others, with Martin Holguin, the state editor of
El Imparcial and with Beltrones himself.
El Imparcial, whose circulation of 45,000 makes it the largest selling paper
in Sonora, is a frequent stop for out-of-town journalists, Mexican or foreign. By
American standards, the paper’s news-gathering operation is shallow and
deficient, but it is by far the most influential and serious news organ in the State.
Pyes met with Holguin and others almost as a formality, said journalists
familiar with the meetings, for the reporter had already possessed documents that
he believed showed the culpability of the governor.
For Pyes, author of recipe books for French and Italian picnics, being in a
position where he would use official US documents to accuse another of
wrongdoing, was a departure from his previous role as editor of High Times, a
magazine that catered to the illicit-drug community.
Some 18 years earlier, Pyes stories had dealt with how DEA had used
torture on incarcerated Mexicans and how the agency deceived the American
public about its missions abroad.

But information gleaned from the meetings with El Imparcial, Pyes
believed, would help buttress the less-than-conclusive information contained in his
documents.
A visit to the most respected daily paper in the state would certainly appear
to be a prudent strategy. It is understood in journalism circles that such assistance
places the guest newspaper first-in-line to publish the work of the other.
But there were special circumstances surrounding the relationship between
Beltrones and El Imparcial.
The paper, for decades, wielded formidable power in political circles,
enjoying a near-monopoly on government publishing contracts and virtual veto
power over key political appointments. Its ownership and board of directors were
openly allied with the conservative opposition, PAN, and the paper had feuded
openly with Beltrones for the first five years of his governorship.
The discord was both professional and oddly personal.
El Imparcial disagreed with Beltrones on a number of appointments and
policies. It had been denied publishing contracts with the state government. Even
if the paper would have preferred a PAN governor, it was still prepared to endure a
friendly member of the Revolutionary Institutional Party, or PRI, as it had been for
decades. But Beltrones was not the paper’s candidate for its consolation prize,
either. (The paper had voiced its preference for a relative, Hector Guillermo
Balderrama, when finalists for governor had been announced in 1991.)
But a day-to-day power struggle was exacerbated by a nasty personal
conflict.
On Valentine’s Day, 1994, in the midst of an El Imparcial-government
conflict, Opinion magazine, a weekly, published pictures of the wife of the El
Imparcial publisher embracing the trainer of a local gym. It was widely believed,
though never documented, that the pictures had been taken by operatives of the
state government. (In Sonora, it was widely known that Jose Luis Hernandez

Salas, editor of Opinion and a friend of the governor, maintained a grudge against
the Healy family because of a bitter divorce involving both families.)
Whether any of this animosity was known to Pyes, and if so, whether it
influenced him, is unknown. Pyes, after initially telling the author that he would
cooperate in an analysis of the story, rescinded his offer and would not comment.
But it was against this backdrop that Pyes, backed with a mix of US
government data and information from El Imparcial, would carry out a specific
mission.
He would not deal the generalities of how peasants, known as “mules,”
sneak a few kilos of marijuana across remote trails on the Sonora-Arizona border;
or show how Cessna aircraft loaded with cocaine swoop in and out of Sonoran
canyons to avoid radar detection by US Border Patrol or military monitors before
meeting their contacts in the vast Arizona desert.
He would do more.
For years, American and other foreign media had described public sector
corruption in general terms, often parroting local media or opposition politicians
not constrained by harsh libel and defamation laws that might have tempered their
pronouncements in other nations.
The Times piece would, for the first time, point fingers and assign blame.
The information in Pyes’ possession outlined webs of corruption at the state level.
At the top of the state hierarchy: Governor Beltrones.
The trip to Obregón would serve as a backup to the reports. Pyes went
source to source. He offered anonymity to all of those interviewed, but there were
few, if any, takers, for there was no evidence to corroborate the reports.
“I thought I would spend 15 minutes with the reporter and that we were
going to handle this on the curb,” recalled Adalberto Rosas, an ardent opponent of
Beltrones, who was believed to be the first subject of a Pyes interview. “I didn’t
have a thing to share with him and there wasn’t need for anything more. ‘If you
want to talk rumors,’ I told him, ‘I can spend the rest of the day with you, probably

the rest of the month. What the hell -- I’ll probably read rumors that we ourselves
started about the guy. But if you’ve come to get facts, there’s no reason to even
bother sitting down. You’ll walk with nothing.’”
Pyes sat with Rosas for two hours and sought confirmation of accusations
contained in the reports, which had been leaked to the Times. “‘Nothing, nothing,
nothing,’” I told him,” Rosas recalled. “I had heard this stuff before, and we’ve all
heard it before, and there’s a tendency in Mexico to accept as truth something if
we’ve heard it enough times. But I kept returning to a simple truth: regurgitation,
repetition of rumor, doesn’t make an allegation any truer.”
Rosas introduced Pyes to José Antonio Gándara.
Pyes once again sought to confirm information contained in the reports.
Again, nothing. “Gándara says to me, ‘Is this guy here to investigate or reveal
reality to them?’” Rosas recalled. “We couldn’t figure out his agenda.”
Ciudad Obregón is a desert city whose sprawl is about the same size as
Tucson. Pyes, needing some logistical assistance and advice on local sources,
sought the guidance of Araceli Martinez, the El Imparcial correspondent.
One of the local sources suggested by Martinez was Luis Meza Soto,
director of the Aerofumigadores Unidos del Yaqui y Mayo, A.C., a 70-member
association of pilots who spray the expansive agricuiltural lands.
A scenario similar to that of the meeting with Rosas and Gándara took
place over an hour’s discussion with Meza. “The reporter told me that I could, in
confidence, tell him about the governor’s use of landing strips to ferry narcotics,”
Meza recalled. “He offered me confidentiality, not just to talk about the governor’s
role, but about the governor’s brother (Orestes) who is from Obregón, as well. I
told him that the governor had been supportive of helping those of us in the
fumigating business because he had targeted funds to landing strips. In the past,
when a fumigator was in trouble, he had to land on a highway – and we were very
grateful for the governor’s assistance. But that was all. For an hour, he tried

putting words in my mouth, both about the governor and his brother. ‘Look,’ I
said, ‘If you know something else, that is fine, but don’t try imputing it to me.’”
Observed Martinez: “I kept Craig company and I watched as he sought
corroboration of his information, person after person,” she recalled. “It just didn’t
happen. It was frustrating, for he was confident that he held the truth in his hand
and yet we got “no’ after “no.’ When Craig left, I would describe his attitude as
encabronado (pissed off, angry).”
The denials did not support the information in Pyes’ hands. In fact, several
American correspondents in Mexico City who also were recipients of the leaked
documents dismissed them as “garbage” or saw them, perhaps presciently -- as
the nasty -- but not atypical -- product of political infighting.
But Pyes inability to corroborate incidents in Ciudad Obregón was absent
when, on Sunday February 23, 1997, the Times, on Page 1, announced that “the
governor of the Mexican state that borders Arizona (Sonora) is collaborating with
one of the world’s most powerful drug traffickers, creating a haven for smugglers
who transport vast quantities of narcotics into the United States...”

Chapter II
Plenty of Rumor but No Evidence
“I was under enormous pressure to pull Gov. Beltrones’ visa if he was helping
traffickers. I put together a working group at the Embassy, consisting of DEA,
Customs and everyone else that might have information. We consulted everyone. I
read through all the intelligence reports and they were full of holes. In fact, we
learned that the governor had been very helpful to us. As a lawyer, you ask
yourself, ‘Would I feel comfortable presenting this evidence to a grand jury?’ The
answer was ‘no.’ I didn’t have even a minimum amount of evidence.”
Jim Jones
Former Ambassador to Mexico
A story that tells of complicity between the governor of Sonora and one of
the world’s most powerful narcotics traffickers would logically cause a scandal.
It would likely bring a forced resignation; civil and criminal charges (both
in the US and Mexico); national shame and embarrassment; and outrage from
Mexicans and Americans alike. At a minimum, other stories -- and indictments --
would follow and parties would resign or be run from office. (This is precisely
what happened recently to Gov. Mario Villanueva of Quintana Roo state in the
Spring of 1999.)
A story that, for the first time, reveals the influence of narcotics traffickers
in corrupting government, would provide a breakdown of how the operation
worked. To be complete, news stories provide the 5w’s (who, what, when, why
and where) and 1 h (how) behind a story.
Yet, for 84 paragraphs, the reader of the Sunday paper emerges with
virtually none of that information.
The stunning accusation (“collaborating with one of the world’s...”) is left
entirely unsubstantiated. There is ample hearsay. There is ample rumor. There is
ample proof that Sonora is a staging area for the export of narcotics into the US.
Readers tend to be forgiving when anonymous sources provide explicit
information. They are no less understanding when specific sources make vague

accusations. Rarely, however, in the annals of American journalism, are stories
published that rely on the basis of anonymous sources making vague charges.
The Times stories uses that precise strategy – allegations that cannot be
verified. There are hints of a smoking gun. “Intelligence sources” say there is
irrefutable evidence that the governor is dirty. So do Mexican and American law
enforcement personnel. The headline to the story reads: “Warm Climate for
Mexican Traffickers...Detailing Mexican Traffickers’ Road Map, Informers
Implicate 2 Governors.”
But a sub-headline, written by a Times copyeditor more accurately
synthesizes, “Word May be Out, But Proof is Lacking.”
Days after the publication, Ambassador Jim Jones, reacting to calls from
superiors in Washington and queries from both Mexican and American media,
convened a working group at the Embassy in Mexico City.
Revelations that the governor was actively collaborating with Amado
Carrillo Fuentes obviously required a response from the US.
“I was under enormous pressure to do something -- at a minimum, yank his
visa,” Jones recalled. But that was a petty consideration.
If there was proof, the ambassador would be demanding that President
Zedillo dismiss and possibly arrest the governor. He might also ask for the
governor to be extradited to the US, he added.
None of which materialized.
The ambassador’s working group included representatives of the DEA and
other Justice Department officials; the CIA; the US military; the FBI; and
Customs.
Jones, who has been in government since working at the White House
under Lyndon Johnson, had a particular benchmark in mind to decide whether
there was any action to take against Beltrones.
If evidence from his working group was such that, in the US, the evidence
would be sufficient to be presented to a grand jury for indictment, he would start

by revoking Beltrones’ visa and then gradually moving to harsher measures
including criminal indictment in the US.
The key to Jones’ reasoning was the word “presented.”
He recalled: “I was not concerned whether the evidence would be strong
enough to convict. It is usually easy to get the grand jury to indict.”
Nothing.
“They presented their investigation to me and I said, ‘This holds no water.
There is nothing here,’” he recalled. “I’m not moving.”
No symbolic action such as visa revocation took place. No stricter action
occurred later. The only follow-up items in the Times actually dealt with
Beltrones’ contribution in helping solve a money laundering operation and a
protest letter to the editor from Beltrones, himself, strangely-headlined, “"Mexican
Official Had No Tie to Drug Trafficker." (See Annex for a copy of that letter and
the article that dealt with Beltrones in a more favorable light.)
Beltrones traveled freely to the US during that time. Seven months later, he
finished his term and, now as exgovernor, traveled – politically maligned but
unhindered legally -- to Queens College, Columbia University, Georgetown and
other schools.

Chapter III
Where Leaks Spring
“Elements in the Department of Justice, and DEA, have decided that all Mexican
politicians are guilty. They have an “ends-justify-the-means” approach. It’s a
generic view that everyone is a trafficker. To me, their attitude is fascist, Nazi, and
not the way the American system works. This business of paid canaries singing a
song that has been written for them should worry us all. DEA promotes on events
– almost like a traffic cop who writes his quota of tickets and makes so many
arrests. They have an incentive to get lots of people arrested because that’s how
they earn their stripes – as opposed to performing good intelligence work.”
John Gavin
There is no single method, or agency, through which the United States
learns about narcotics trafficking in Mexico.
When local law enforcement in the US arrests a Mexican on narcotics
trafficking, any information gleaned from these interviews may be passed on to
state, federal or even international law enforcement agencies. Or it may be
ignored.
When federal authorities arrest a Mexican national, information may be
kept in files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security
Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the US State Department, the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA), US Customs, US Border Patrol or in the
computers of the El Paso Intelligence Center, known as EPIC. That facility, which
serves as a clearinghouse for law enforcement, is headed by civilian law
enforcement and supplemented by military personnel. Known as Joint Task Force
6 (JTF6), it is based at Fort Bliss, next to El Paso airport. It consists of 300 to 350
law enforcement agents and approximately 1,100 support personnel, including
military and civilian employees.
In 1995 and 1996, the head of EPIC was DEA Special Agent Phil Jordan.
In an interview, Jordan said Beltrones was “never on anyone’s priority list, if he

was on any list at all,” and he had to be told who Beltrones was. Later, as part of a
self-due diligence, Jordan was contracted to further investigate the exgovernor.
His report states there was never anything more than speculation as to Beltroneses’
role in assisting traffickers.
Before Jordan, the chief of EPIC was DEA agent Ed Heath, who also
served as an agent in charge of DEA-Mexico. In an interview, Heath, since retired,
also had to be reminded who Beltrones was. Once reminded, he said, “All those
guys are guilty” -- though he had no specific recall of any cases involving
Beltrones.
Because of its desire to track narcotics trafficking to its source, the US
government also investigates smuggling and production abroad. That mandate
falls primarily to DEA. At a given moment, DEA has only three to four dozen
agents working in Mexico. The agents are accredited by the Mexican government
and work from the US Embassy in Mexico City or from nine consulates
throughout the country.
DEA has been in Mexico since its founding in the early 1970’s. Its agents
are there under an agreement with the Mexican government. They are not allowed
to carry arms and do not participate actively in enforcement. Because narcotics
trafficking is exclusively a federal crime, DEA agents’ primary source of
information is the Mexican Federal Judicial Police.
The agency is secretive, under-funded and considered ineffectual -- if not
counter-productive to many law enforcement missions. Its numbers are small
(2,000 academy-trained agents nationwide) and their salaries low (equivalent of
$1,500/month). By even its internal assessments, the agency is understaffed and
largely unready to deal with the trafficking groups that enjoy superior manpower,
technology and financing.
It is also known to be widely-corrupt. Both abroad and within Mexico, the
MPFJ is considered to be as much a tool of traffickers as it is a force in fighting
them.

But if the agency’s reputation is poor, even miserable, a dismal reality
remains: except for the military, whose mandate has only recently been expanded
to include certain narcotics tasks, there is no other agency empowered to enforce
smuggling laws.
DEA agents, aware or uncertain of the integrity of their Mexican partners,
accompany -- unarmed -- their Mexican counterparts on missions. But because
there are so few DEA agents in Mexico, they may rely on a single source for
intelligence on the activities in an entire city or state.
To put that in context, it would be as if a foreign police officer relied on a
single source for all his narcotics intelligence information from, say, Minnesota.
The Federal Judicial Police report to the Mexican Attorney General, who is
usually the point of contact for US authorities with Mexican law enforcement and
the Mexican executive branch.
In 1994, the year that the DEA study implicating Beltrones was done, the
Attorney General was, for the first time, in the hands of Mexico’s political
opposition, PAN and its chief of the anti-narcotics program -- known as the
Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Health -- was Francisco Molina, a former
prosecutor from Chihuahua state.
Beltrones was never the focus of any investigation, Molina said in an
interview in Mexico City. “It certainly would have behooved us politically to go
after a majority party member, particularly a governor, and we would have done so
aggressively if there had been a hint of wrongdoing,” he said.
More important, 1994 was an election year in Mexico. It was a time to
endear oneself to the incoming president -- and the time to eliminate, at whatever
cost, one’s political rivals.
DEA agents maintain contacts with municipal and state law enforcement
and collect information from newspapers and political sources. But these
conventional methods are supplemented with a more controversial tactic -- that of
using paid informants. This group includes life-long criminals who have turned

state’s witness or are seeking to make money on the side, drug-investigating
mercenaries, rival traffickers and others.
This variety of sources -- paid informants, Mexican police, intelligence
from the US and elsewhere and newspaper clips -- is the information bank from
which DEA agents work. Most of that information is considered, in DEA parlance,
to be “raw intelligence.” That is, there is no claim to its veracity.
It is now up to individual agents and their country leader to comb the
evidence and provide accurate reports to DEA in Mexico City and Washington,
and ultimately to the Department of Justice, the President and the US Congress,
which annually “certifies” what foreign nations are engaged in earnest efforts to
fight narcotics trafficking.
How well are DEA agents trained to process and filter this “raw”
information?
That is open to discussion. DEA has approximately 4,200 agents worldwide
and rotates them frequently. Some are in a host country for as little as a year; a
lesser number has been there for three years or more.
Some of the agents come from the US military and other law enforcement
agencies. Salaries in DEA are not as high as other federal law enforcement; the
competition to join is not great; turnover is higher than most agencies and morale
is generally lower.
DEA has made great strides in investigating narcotics trafficking patterns
worldwide but it has also made egregious errors of omission and commission. As
competent and talented as some agents are, it is nearly impossible with such a brief
stay -- two or three years -- to follow up on clues.
Information from the agents in Mexico finds its way first to the US
Embassy in Mexico City and then headquarters in Washington. Information about
trends in transport or types of narcotics confiscated might be shared with all levels
of law enforcement in the US, as might perceptions about several of the “mafias”
that DEA believes control both transit and wholesale operations.

More sensitive information is classified, or at least temporarily, for much of
it also finds its way to the mass media through selected leaks.
In addition to information gathered by DEA, investigation into narcotics
trafficking is also carried out -- independently, it should be noted -- by the Central
Intelligence Agency. In a less visible but perhaps as significant a role, the National
Security Agency (NSA) monitors communications in Mexico and maintains its
own data bank.
The information sitting in US law enforcement computer banks may be
legitimate and it may be completely specious -- that is, a report from a CIA or
DEA agent may well contain information about what a paid informant was told by
a source that, in turn, had been told by another source.
And that information leaks out.
The reasons are numerous. A DEA agent, or task force, may believe that it
will help an ongoing case by allowing certain information to become public. A
renegade or aggressive agent may be frustrated at the lack of action taken by his
superiors. Or a US congressman, senator or other official with access to
confidential information, may decide that disclosure will bring political dividends.
A leak need not be based on any evidence, for an agency can either deny its
existence or insist that it is confidential. Nor must it be verifiable. It need not
contain specific accusations or names of accusers. In fact, because it is a leak, the
information need not withstand any scrutiny at all -- unless in the highly-unlikely
case that an accused party decides to sue. And when that party is a foreigner, the
possibility that US law enforcement will have to account for its leak is even less.
What, after all, is the likelihood that a Colombian, Peruvian or Mexican
will ever seek editorial redress or retraction from a US newspaper, or, much less,
sue, if he or she believes he has been treated unjustly?
The following underscores the grave consequences of depending on such
sources: In 1994, the director of the Federal Judicial Police was Adrián Carrera,
who is today in jail having confessed that -- during that time -- he had been

suborned to protect the interests of Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Carrera had done this,
he admitted with the knowledge of his superior, Mario Ruiz Massieu, then
assistant Attorney General of Mexico. (Ruiz Massieu, who was charged with a
variety of crimes after being arrested in New Jersey, subsequently committed
suicide in the US.)
It is ironic -- if not stunning -- that The New York Times, in one of its many
vague allegations about Beltrones, relies on the PJF commander, even though he is
not named, according to several past and current DEA sources.
Leaks do not always come from the US. The Mexican government
selectively leaks documents about members of the ruling PRI party who may be
out of favor, or more likely, about those accused of wrongdoing with no party
affiliation or who are members of the opposition.
But, because Mexicans distrust their own federal police, such a leak --
revealed in domestic media -- would likely be ignored, even ridiculed.
But if the information from that leak within the Mexican government, or a
political party, appeared in a US newspaper, it could well enjoy a credibility it
would never have been otherwise accorded.
In the story supposedly linking Beltrones to traffickers, the only source
accusing Beltrones of being in cahoots with traffickers is a former Federal Judicial
Police commander. Since he is unnamed, as are all key sources in the story, one is
left to speculate as to his credibility and motives. (Moreover, the reputation of the
Federal Judicial Police, as one rife with corruption, is not mentioned.)
One of the most critical voices on the role of the DEA, both at home and
abroad, belongs to that of John Womack Jr., a Harvard University historian who is
an authority on Mexico.
“Essentially, the gangsters run the investigators (DEA), who, out of
stupidity, venality, and careerism, pretend to chase the gangsters,” he says. “The
DEA in Mexico is largely an instrument of the traffickers,” who seek to “get some
organ or other of the great American press to publish anything they want

published, which both the right and left in this country (US) then applaud without
a critical thought.”
The professor, interviewed in 1999, added, “I have seen Mexican
documents alleging that everyone in the Zedillo government but Zedillo and
Minister of the Interior Labastida are on the traffickers’ payroll.” (Note: Professor
Womack gave the interview while Ernesto Zedillo was president and Francisco
Labastida was minister of the interior.)
But the documents may be entirely false and self-serving. The revelation is
“wonderful,” said Womack, only if it turns out that the anonymous source “is not
Labastida” himself.
Particularly vexing, says Womack, “is that “all the critical habits that
American intellectuals right and left, developed during the Cold War, seem to
have disappeared in regard to the supposed War on Drugs.” (See Annex 4 for a
copy of the entire note.)

Chapter IV
Where Does a Wronged Foreigner Turn?
“I think it was stupid of the governor to file a lawsuit in Mexico (against the NYT).
You can only lose in a pissing match with the New York Times. But we went back
and analyzed everything very carefully and there wasn’t the basis to do anything.”
Jim Jones
Politics is underhanded and unforgiving by definition and so, goes the
reasoning of many, when a politician is a victim of a printed lie, however
malicious, it is prudent he or she not waste the effort in self-defense. The mere
defense of oneself, so the argument goes, dredges up the original charges and
reminds a cynical public of the possibilities of guilt.
This is a strategy pursued almost without exception. Stories regularly
appear in US print and broadcast media that suggest official Mexican complicity
in criminal enterprise.
Such is the consistency of stories about official corruption that most readers
assume that any Mexican official, by definition, is corrupt.
There are several reasons this occurs.
First, Mexico does have a serious corruption problem in its civil service.
One structural fault of a government with a strong executive branch and weak
judicial and legislative branches is a lack of oversight (or checks and balances). It
is much harder in Mexico to track down and prove malfeasance on the part of civil
servants. But if corruption is endemic -- it is usually “within reason,” which is to
say that society has a certain tolerance when it comes to its public sector receiving
gratuities from gestores (go-betweens) or advocates.
Another reason the Mexican government is often accused of corruption is
its lack of full disclosure.
The country lags behind dozens of nations with its public disclosure laws.
The same “right to know,” which allows US media access to salaries, fringe

benefits and even phone numbers dialed on tax-payer phones of their leaders, does
not exist in Mexico. What the American press considers a fundamental bit of
public data -- how much is spent on a particular salary, or the reimbursable
expenses of a public official -- is not in the public domain, though it may be
known to many in public administration.
Moreover, the Mexican government, from municipal to federal levels, is
notoriously poor at self-defense or explaining itself. Critics may scoff at this,
insisting that public administration should not need to defend or explain its
policies. This is false. Though it is an extreme case, one need only witness the zeal
expended by a government such as Israel -- to say nothing of Israel sympathizers
in the US -- to defend its images and policies before US media.
This passive Mexican policy, labeled for better or worse as “non-
intervention,” dates to the founding of the modern state. At the hands of Spanish,
French and Americans, Mexico has been the victim (and beneficiary) of foreign
intervention. From those experiences emerged a national policy that places a
premium on national sovereignty and virtually eliminates advocacy --- even if in
self-defense -- abroad.
(Academics would say that this policy began to change, albeit slowly, with
Mexico’s lobbying of US officials for passage of NAFTA in the early 1990’s.)
Against this backdrop, it is easy to see how confusing it is for the rest of the
world to understand the Mexican government when that nation is called upon to
respond to criticism of a policy, a functionary or an ordinary citizen.
Lack of defense, in the eyes of Americans, particularly the media, is
tantamount to acknowledgment of guilt, and that is the most common
interpretation of a Mexican non-response to an accusation.
It is conceivable that charges leveled against a Mexican, or Mexico
generally, are baseless. But this is a distant possibility in the minds of American
media and citizenry.

It may well be that an American reporter in Mexico, a generalist almost by
definition, has no knowledge of the topic on which he has been assigned to write.
He may not know the language sufficiently or have the contacts necessary
to get “the other side of the issue.” Finally, he may not care, because editors --
superiors, on the newspaper hierarchies -- don’t pressure their staff to investigate.
(Even if they did, it is likely the staff wouldn’t know how to go about it.) We have
read so much about corruption in Mexico that it becomes a presumption of any
story.
General rule of the news desk at US newspapers: A Mexican is guilty
unless proved innocent. Experience, say the editors, supports this.
(Mexican media themselves often convey the same impression. In a
nationally-televised news program, journalist Denise Dresser, while
acknowledging that no charges against Beltrones had been documented, charged,
“But, nor has he (Beltrones) established his innocence.” Of course, the journalist
did not mention that a Mexican investigation had cleared Beltrones of
wrongdoing.) In an unusual, American-style defense of Beltrones, two Mexican
journalists, Carlos Marin and Ciro Gomez, would later counter Dresser’s “prove
your innocence” stance -- but this defense of Beltrones is still the exception in
Mexico today. (Annex for copies of those articles.)
The author of this book spent 10 years reporting from Mexico and was a
fellow in 1989 at the University of California (San Diego) Center for US-Mexican
affairs. My experience at the Arizona Daily Star and Arizona Republic newspapers
did not lead to a judgment that these papers acted from malice or prejudice in
stories that almost uniformly presented Mexico as unsafe, corrupt and, often,
immoral.
Rather, such stories are the norm because reporters – many of them
Chicano, ironically -- don’t know better.
These reporters face the same pressure to produce stories as their (US)
newsroom colleagues. But here’s the exception: the stories of the Mexico-based

reporter are uninhibited and un-tempered by requisites of journalistic fairness
required in the US.
Baseless though stories may be, the lack of an official Mexican response
will often provide them credibility.
A full understanding of the mentality at work in a US newsroom requires
considering this: What, after all, are the risks of running a negative Mexico story?
As we all know, goes the collective reasoning, Mexico is always on the verge of
some disaster, some crisis, some insurrection, something evil. When they are not
robbing or killing American tourists, or worshiping an Indian saint, Mexicans are
surely revolting against some hideous measure taken by their government.
By repeating or initiating use of certain buzzwords -- corrupt, alleged,
associated with --the American medium protects itself. When an American is
accused unjustly, emboldened by a legal tradition that safeguards the right to
defend his name, he sues. A Mexican won’t. Xenophobia sells. Let’s publish.
If we allow that one or two Mexicans accused in the US media of
wrongdoing is actually innocent, the question emerges: What can he do?
He could write a letter to the editor. He could start a phone campaign and
tell 2.1 million readers that a particular story is wrong. He could resign himself to
the negative publicity and write off the experience to bad karma. In the US, an
aggrieved party might take his complaint to a competing medium.
For foreigners, however, that is impractical for a number of reasons,
starting with the small number of correspondents, most untrained, and what their
willingness would be to devote time and resources to a topic as drab as disproving
another medium’s assertions. That is, there may be readership and prestige to be
gained when the Times reveals plagiarism in The New Republic or when a
columnist reveals plagiarism or fiction in the Times.
But the likelihood that one medium will scrutinize or audit another’s
research in a foreign country is minute. First, there are fewer papers. Second, in a

society where information doesn’t flow, such research would take considerably
longer.
A foreigner who believes he has been libeled could certainly sue, but
such an option becomes feasible only if he or she has the resources. Virtually
every serious libel suit exceeds six-figures. In an instance where a public figure
sues a major paper, attorneys suggested a suit would top $1 million before the
trial stage.
A final course of action: the party believing himself to be an innocent
victim can try to set the record straight by seeking to find a worker that would both
fact-check material that has already been published and would undertake new
research that might corroborate or negate accusations.
The author’s work from 1981 to 1994 as a reporter for The Arizona Daily
Star and Arizona Republic made him a candidate for such a charge.
During assignments in Sonora, I reported primarily on tourism and
business. I had covered the construction and launch of Ford Motor Co.’s stamping
and assembly plant in Hermosillo; the boom of Sonora’s tourism poles in Puerto
Peñasco and Guaymas; and the day-to-day life of the sizable American community
that lives in the state. I speak Spanish. To the uninitiated, that would seem a
bizarre assertion. But I emphasize it because two-thirds of the foreign press corps
in Mexico does not have sufficient grasp of the language to be trusted to do a
question/answer interview.
I met Beltrones during the campaign of Rodolfo Felix Valdés, governor of
Sonora from 1985 to 1991 and interviewed him numerous times. Mexico’s polling
methodology is still in its infancy, but its polls showed that Beltrones enjoyed
greater public approval than most elected officials.
While it is widely believed that the election of Felix Valdés, Beltrones’
predecessor, was a rigged election -- and I privately thought that Beltrones helped
rig it -- there is no doubt that in July of 1991 Beltrones himself was elected by

legitimate, overwhelming numbers. (In fact, for the first time, the Sonora State
Congress approved election results unanimously.)
My knowledge of narcotics trafficking issues was minimal and I don’t
pretend it is much better today. In the study of any criminal enterprise, there are
many masquerading as authorities and relatively few who are genuinely in the
know. Reliable information is at a premium: If tracking money-laundering
operations and conducting intelligence in the US is complicated, it is more so in
Mexico (and other developing nations), where law enforcement enjoys little of the
technology and know-how available in the US; record-keeping is often deficient
and more secretive than in the US; the judiciary is inherently unreliable; and
torture and paid-informants are a component of both civil and criminal cases.
But, unlike most of my colleagues in the foreign press, I did not write from
abject ignorance or second-hand anecdotes. I did ride-alongs with the Federal
Judicial Police and accompanied the Mexican Army on reconnaissance missions
into the mountains of Chihuahua and Sonora. I originated an exchange program
between the Arizona Daily Star and El Imparcial under which both papers shared
information and provided office space to reporters of the other. I personally know
most of the staff and administration of El Imparcial and other media in Sonora.
Both Arizona newspapers for which I reported insisted on periodic news
coverage of drug-related stories and it was through those assignments, and
particularly my readings of Drug Enforcement Administration affidavits, that I
came to realize that some drug intelligence work is comprehensive and accurate.
Some is laughable, rife with basic factual errors and so speculative that even a
novice journalist would deride and dismiss it.
As naive about narcotics trafficking issues as I am, there is no theme about
which I am a more fervent advocate than that of man’s entitlement to presumption
of innocence.
I was contacted friends of Beltrones almost a year after he had left the
governorship.

He was now living in Mexico City, visiting the US frequently and biding
his time until he was offered a suitable post in the federal government. I met with
Beltrones and colleagues twice and established the terms under which I would
consider working.
For the wages I earned as a reporter, plus traveling expenses, I would agree
– with one proviso -- to play the role of researcher.
Funding for such a project would be covered by several friends of
Beltrones. It seemed absurd to them that their friend had been on-the-take and they
were willing to pay for an independent investigative audit they believed would
vindicate him.
Some had urged the governor to sue, believing that a mere research project
would be a feeble response to the allegations in the Times. Others pleaded with the
ex-governor not to respond at all because, they believed, protestations of
innocence would continue to call attention to the original charges and fuel
speculation about his guilt.
Selection of the reporter’s wages as payment was based on a “walk-away”
need.
My role was to be researcher – but, unlike so-called objective reporting, I
had a client with a clear, vested and urgent interest. If I discovered he was
deceitful, I needed to be able to walk away. I could walk away with a clean
conscience only if I considered myself a researcher. To earn more would converted
me into an apologist, advocate – or something other than a researcher.
I did not share the same certainty that this kind of self due-diligence would
vindicate Beltrones; it did not matter to me. Rather, I believed that by accepting
such a task, in some noble fashion, I would be able to examine, under a
magnifying glass, an instance of the journalistic double-standard that exists in
American newspapers.
Still, satisfying the proviso would require a trip to Tijuana.

Jesus Blancornelas is the managing editor of Zeta, a weekly alternative
paper based in that border city that is viewed in Mexico and abroad as the nation’s
premier investigative organ.
Blancornelas, at 60, was the dean of Mexico’s watchdog journalism. Zeta
has broken more stories on narcotics trafficking than the sum of those broken by
US and Mexican mainstream press.
As retribution for a series that ran in 1997, Blancornelas was himself shot
and seriously wounded on a Tijuana street. (His chauffeur died.) A decade before,
his partner and Zeta co-founder, Hector Felix Miranda, had been assassinated.
Blancornelas recovered and Zeta has continued its role as a small but potent voice
about narcotics trafficking in and around Mexico’s fourth- largest city.
A visit with Blancornelas is almost a rite of passage for US or Mexican
reporters traveling to the border.
In a nation where newspapers more often serve the state than serve their
readership, Blancornelas is a maverick. Feisty, soft-spoken and direct, he has
devoted his life to stories -- political and crime oriented -- that often clash with the
interests of those in government and the private sector. If there is one
newspaperman in the country with a knowledge of the narcotics underworld, it is
Blancornelas.
Recent recognition of his labor came in 1998 when Columbia University
awarded Blancornelas its Maria Moors Cabot Prize for “courageous,
comprehensive and compassionate reporting in Latin America.”
Today, the visitor to his office must enter through a phalanx of military
police providing 24-hour protection to the editor and the paper’s office.
I told Blancornelas about the research project. He had read the Times story
on the day it was published and had followed the aftermath, as the story was
translated into Spanish and reprinted throughout Mexico.

“I don’t want to be Beltrones’ smiling American apologist,” I said. “Tell
me there’s a likelihood he’s guilty and he’s using me to clear his name and I tell
them ‘Forget it.’”
Blancornelas didn’t hesitate. “You can never, ever, be certain,” he said.
“But I know of nothing and I don’t think anyone else does, either. I don’t think
there’s anything to know about.”
Conditions of the one proviso had been met and I called Mexico City to
accept the work.
The Cabot Prize was announced in early September of 1998. My next
encounter with Blancornelas was at the Columbia University ceremony honoring
him and co-winners Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald; Larry Rohter of
the Times; and Edmundo Cruz Vilchez of La Republica, a Peruvian paper.
Blancornelas, in addition to his family, was permitted to invite two guests
of honor to the ceremony in New York City.
One of those choices: Beltrones.

Chapter V
Governing a Mexican State in the 1990’s
“We had nothing on Gov. Beltrones. There are rumors everywhere, about
everyone, of course. But then how do you distinguish between hearsay, bar-room
talk and truly credible information? Something baseless gets repeated enough and
it just becomes conventional wisdom. One of things you need to explore is whether
his own political enemies in Mexico, within the PRI, started these and have an
interest in keeping this going.”
John Negroponte
US Embassador to the United Nations, former Ambassador to Mexico
Manlio Fabio Beltrones, a native of Villa Juarez, Sonora, a small town near
Ciudad Obregon, became governor of Sonora in September of 1991 at the age of
39.
His election earlier that year was yet another piece of a rapid political
ascent. In succession, after leaving the tutelage of Interior Secretary Fernando
Gutierrez Barrios, Beltrones had been a federal deputy; federal senator, secretary
of government (similar to lieutenant governor) of Sonora; undersecretary of the
interior (Secretaría de Gobernación); and a prominent player in the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, known by its Spanish initials, PRI.
In heavily centralized Mexico, being governor of a state is not necessarily a
sure-ticket to political prominence. True financial and political power rests with
the federal government, which, by controlling virtually all taxation authority,
controls state and local budgets. It is an axiom that more power and political
leverage is vested in one of a dozen federal ministerial posts than any of the
nation’s governorships.
Yet, Beltrones had accepted the request from the PRI to return to Sonora,
believing, he said, that he would gain new administrative experience at the state
level and increase his shot at a higher federal post later.

A gubernatorial term is six years, but many rapid-raisers are in that post for
three or four years before accepting a position that places them both
geographically and politically closer to the presidency.
Though popular support has become more a factor in determining
candidacies for public office, it has traditionally been a nod from above -- from a
president, a senator, a cabinet minister, or a former functionary -- that is the key to
becoming a candidate for public office.
Only in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s did a genuine opposition emerge
and, as a consequence, most of Beltrones’ competition (and most of the
competition of other nominees of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI)
came from within the party. If there is rumor-mongering and back-stabbing in the
American political parties, it is tame by Mexican standards.
What Beltrones and other politicians participate in amounts to a political
tinderbox or on-going political free-for-all.
A political system driven by favoritism and nepotism more than electoral
popularity, juxtaposed with a legally unaccountable press that is generally
beholden to a Mexican president and corporate interests, create an environment
where political change is brought about by vendettas, intrigue and other personal
factors – not (in)competence or even popular discontent.
This is crucial to understanding not only the position in which Beltrones
found himself, but all of Mexico’s elected officials.
In the US, it is commonplace for a mayor, governor, congressman or
senator to disagree openly -- courteously or not -- with a president. In Mexico, the
power of the Presidency just a decade ago made that kind of dissent unimaginable.
(With the election of PAN president Vicente Fox in 2000, that criticism and
dissent now more resembles the openness and vigor of the US or other European
systems.)
Because power in Mexico has come from the top -- the Presidency -- down
– and not, as in a mature democracy, from the bottom -- the voters up -- those out

to settle political scores need not rely on the veracity of accusations. They need
only find a willing medium to disseminate a message and an elected superior --
mayor, governor or president, for example -- that does not support the attacked
party. Mexican history is filled with leaders that have fallen from office victims of
media campaigns that may or may not have been backed by accurate accusations.
Beltrones transition to governor and his performance were criticized
frequently and passionately, both by rivals within the PRI and the opposition.
But Beltrones, at least temporarily, enjoyed something few in the Mexican
public sector enjoy: both popular support and the approval of party hierarchy. As a
consequence, most Sonorans and members of Mexico’s political circles thought
Beltrones would be summoned to a cabinet position in Mexico City well before
his term ended in 1997.
(Another reason that Beltrones might be called to Mexico: It was he who, in
the uncertainty following PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio’s assassination in
1994, posited the name of Ernesto Zedillo as the man best suited to carry the
nation in the direction Colosio would have. But it was also known that Beltrones
had bitter conflicts with members of Zedillo’s closest supporters. That group, of
course, had frequent, discrete access to the foreign press. For a more detailed
chronology, see La Herencia, Jorge Castañeda, New Press, New York, 1999. The
book was also published in English as “Perpetuating Power.”)
As governor, Beltrones faced the same kinds of challenges as those of his
American counterparts. Sonora’s two million inhabitants, most better-off and
better-educated than Mexicans from the south, confront the same issues of rapid
growth, economic development, pollution and public security faced by Americans
living in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
In Sonora, liberalized investment laws during the Beltrones governorship
brought vast foreign investment in mining and tourism. The North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) brought dozens of US and Canadian auto parts, high-
tech and even musical instrument assembly plants to the state. Export-oriented

incentives for Mexicans added momentum to already burgeoning wheat, pork and
produce sectors.
As the state’s highest elected official, Beltrones enjoyed the trappings of
any governor -- life in a state-owned mansion, chauffeurs, a crack personal
security squad and, when needed, the ear of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari
and, later President Ernesto Zedillo.
Still, in spite of these perks, a governor does not have much in the way of
funds to satisfy the electorate.
A Mexican governor has broad discretion over how he will spend funds
allocated by the federal government – but they are paltry by US standards.
In Beltrones case, the Sonora state budget was about 1/10th
per capita the
budget of next-door Arizona. Funding for special projects such as road and
irrigation works comes earmarked from the federal government and offers little, if
any, discretionary spending by a state authority.
Cronynism and nepotism, not specifically banned by most state and federal
procurement regulations, are rampant in Mexico. The wealth of Mexican public
servants usually comes from doing business with family and private sector friends
in the same way that machine-style governments of Chicago, Philadelphia and
New York operated in the mid-1900’s.
This corrupt model is almost a fact of life in Mexico. “Un político pobre es
un pobre político,” (A politician who’s poor is a poor politician), goes a quote
attributed to Carlos Hank Gonzalez, a former Secretary of Tourism and Secretary
of Agriculture and one of Mexico’s wealthiest men. (It should come as no surprise
that Hank, like virtually all well-to-do Mexicans, has also been accused of
complicity in narcotics trafficking. But in an intriguing twist, Hank has brought
libel suits and fought against his accusers in the US.)
As in the US, a governor is the state’s chief law enforcement officer.
But that is tempered in Mexico by both the limited role the state may play
in enforcing the law and the funding provided.

In Beltrones’ case, being the chief law enforcement officer meant
overseeing the Sonora State Judicial Police, an 800-member force that deals with
patrolling state roads, murders, assaults, fraud and other white-collar crimes.
Generally speaking, the state police is underpaid, under-trained and suffers from a
lack of credibility. Turnover is high and the agency’s reputation is low. (A
Mexican saying: “Get everything resolved fast following an accident – before
police show up and make things really bad.”)
A governor has a “direct-line” to federal authorities throughout the state,
but this does not signal that he has leverage over them. Federal officials at the state
level are appointed from Mexico City and their loyalties lie not to a governor, but
to the particular Secretariat (or Ministry) to which they belong. A similarly distant
relationship exists with the Mexican Army, whose IV Military Zone is head-
quartered in Hermosillo. The governor and officers of the Zone may appear
together at social functions but rarely at other times.
The military is charged with eradication of marijuana plantations and
interdiction in rural areas, but its mandate often overlaps with that of the Federal
Judicial Police. It is common, for example, to see military roadblocks just miles
from cities. Police and military patrols often encounter one another on conflicting
missions.
A governor’s ties with federal officials or the military are usually little
more than courteous and sometimes overtly hostile and conflictive. The three
powers -- state, federal and military -- are beholden to a different part of the
federal government.
It is not unusual for animosities between these three to break out,
particularly when state or municipal forces are controlled by the political
opposition.
During the time he was governor, Beltrones dealt with a half-dozen
commanders of 4th
Military Zone and -- often against his will -- a dozen federal
police commanders, many of whom were sent to Sonora for a month or two and

then dispatched elsewhere. His relations with the federal police were often tense
and adversarial. In one instance, the icey relations with the Federal Attorney
General’s office become public when the governor criticized the agency after an
agent, in a craze, shot and killed several Hermosillo residents.
In the shrouded world of the Federal Judicial Police, a commander can be
transferred because he is incompetent, too competent, corrupt or honest. As such, a
DEA agent on assignment in Mazatlan could conceivably work in a year with a
half-dozen different federal commanders.
In a small state, it might have been easy to keep track of who was who,
both among federal police, military officials and criminal elements. In practice,
that was impossible and is impossible today.
An explanation requires little more than a map. Sonora is about two-third
the size of Arizona. It is some 400 miles long and as much as 200 miles wide. To
the east, it is bordered by peaks of the Sierra Madre Occidental that jut to 9,000
feet. To the west, it is bordered by more than 500 miles of zig-zag coastline, and
then nothing but sea for 80 miles until the Baja California peninsula. To the north
is about 300 miles of border with Arizona.
That narcotics trafficking goes on -- and on a large scale -- is not in dispute.
Vast distances, natural barriers, a mix of flat and mountainous terrain (for flying
low, in canyons and outside of radar) and proximity to markets on the US West
Coast make Sonora an ideal staging area, or “trampolín,” as it known in Spanish.
But who knows what, and who’s doing what and when, is a mystery -- at
least to those in Sonora and Arizona who aren’t privy to intelligence data. And
even then, the question of the credibility of that information is in doubt. This is an
area watched by radar by US military, US Customs and US Border Patrol. Border
Patrol officers seated at monitoring stages in Tucson and elsewhere in Southwest
use small, buried sensors to detect illegal crossings on foot. Customs and Border
Patrol fly helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in search of suspicious crossings on

foot, aboard vehicles or in the air. A US Customs helium balloon near Sierra
Vista, Arizona, supposedly keeps a watch on air traffic well into Sonora.
On the Mexican side, local police rely on information gleaned from stake-
outs and shakedowns. The Army and Federal Judicial police receive reports from
Mexican radar facilities and, sometimes, reports from US agencies passing on tips
or conducting their own surveillance.
When the author was a reporter with the Arizona Republic, he was ushered
into a private room at the 4th
Military Zone headquarters in Hermosillo. “Here’s
our latest report from the US satellites,” the general told me. “Problem is, the
imaging equipment is totally inaccurate when it comes to poppy growths.”
Cooperation between agencies exist -- but by no means on a systematic or
institutional basis as if, for example, the Virginia state police needed information
from the FBI.
Cooperation exists only when two agencies (or groups within the same
agency) both perceive a benefit from team-work. In the world of fighting narcotics
trafficking -- in Mexico, certainly and arguably, in the US, too -- that type of
cooperation is a rarity.
That is to say, a governor may be omniscient and a governor may be
entirely out of the communications loop.

Chapter VI
A Governor Acts Against a Trafficker
“…The government of the State (of Sonora) has contributed enormously in the
investigation (of money laundering)…providing numerous personal details of
suspected parties. This would have been very difficult under other circumstances
due to lack of access to this type of classified information.”
Sandra Salmon (in correspondance to Gov. Beltrones)
Former US Consul, Hermosillo, Sonora
A governor may be the most powerful single figure in state government, but
that is no guarantee that he is safe.
In a remarkably carefree, if not wreckless fashion, Gov. Beltrones drove the
streets of Sonora at the wheel of his state vehicle, a Chevrolet Suburban, a security
squad occasionally behind him.
Before and after the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio, the majority
party’s (PRI) candidate for president, Beltrones disregarded warnings that danger
might come from organized crime or an alienated loner.
The death of Colosio, a 44-year-old fellow Sonoran whose ascent in
Mexican government had paralleled that of Beltrones, was the work of a lone
assassin, according to government investigators. (Others insist it was a
conspiracy.)
Whichever, the assassination was -- and is -- hardly unique to Mexican
society.
Violence in public and private life remains endemic.
The country is in the midst of profound social and political change. Parts of
the country – Baja California state, in particular – are home to ongoing turf wars
between rival drug smugglers. (In 1999 alone, more than 600 murders and 50
kidnappings took place as rival traffickers fought over turf. It is worth noting, too,
that Baja California has been under PAN –opposition – government in recent
years.)

Systematic intimidation of human rights lawyers, journalists, policemen
and politicians are common, if not staples, of daily life. Murders are not unusual.
A governor would be only marginally less likely to be the target of
traffickers’ hit squads than, say, a marijuana mule (crosser), if he was perceived to
be interfering with the trade. A governor would also likely find himself on a hit list
if he was favoring one group of traffickers over another.
That is, politically, the costs of killing a public official or another person of
high-profile, are higher -- but, as witnessed throughout Mexico and Latin America,
they are a crucial tool in establishing dominance in a marketplace.
It was against this backdrop that Beltrones, like governors in 31 other
states, operated: uncertain alliances and more rivalry than cooperation with other
federal agencies and the military; well-armed, sophisticated and competing
smuggling organizations; and US law enforcement agencies that simultaneously
deal with police and informants from each of these groups, in addition to US
sources and media in both nationals to compile intelligence.
And it was amidst this hostile scenario that Beltrones took action against
the man reputed to be one of Mexico’s major narcotics traffickers, Amado Carrillo
Fuentes – the same man he would be accused by the Times of aiding and abetting.
Federal authorities in Sonora and Beltroneses’ own state police
acknowledge observing Carrillo’s trips to and from Hermosillo in 1992 and their
intelligence indicated that Carrillo had also traveled frequently in and out of
Hermosillo in 1990 and 1991 -- before Beltrones took office.
Pursuing Carrillo was not the responsibility of the governor or any other
state official. Nor would it be the kind of task a state official would want.
Similar to the circumstances surrounding mafia family-bosses in the United
States, Carrillo had a ruthless reputation but faced no outstanding arrest warnings.
State officials informed Beltrones that Carrillo appeared to be receiving
logistical support from the Federal Judicial Police, the same agency ostensibly
investigating the trafficker.

Films taken by the Sonora State Judicial Police and provided to Beltrones
clearly showed members of the local detachment of the Federal Judicial Police
providing security to Carrillo.
In 1992, Beltrones told President Salinas that Carrillo was operating in
Sonora and enjoyed protection of federal police. Salinas, Beltrones recalled,
requested proof. In a Februrary, 1993, visit to Mexico City, Beltrones presented
Salinas with the videotapes.
The president called Attorney General Jorge Carpizo McGregor, who told
Beltrones that there was still no “complainant” and therefore no warrant could be
issued against Carrillo.
Beltrones introduced the attorney general to Wenceslao Cota, the Sonora
attorney general. On the spot, Cota, who was authorized to assume the role of
complainant on behalf of the government, filed a complaint (denuncia), Beltrones
and Cota both recalled. This was the first known warrant for Carrillo’s arrest.
Caripizo called his two deputies, Mario Ruiz Massieu and Adrian Carrera
to meet with the governor.
What appeared to be an innocent moment of high-level public officials
would later emerge as a possible watershed: Ruiz Massieu, later jailed in Newark
and charged with money-laundering, committed suicide in September, 1999. He
was also a suspect in the assassination of his brother, a high PRI party official.
Carrera, who served as director of the entire Federal Judicial Police, is now
a protected witness in the United States. He has acknowledged receiving bribes
from Carrillo in exchange for keeping federal authorities from closing in on his
client.
In his sensational revelations about meetings with Carrillo, Carrera has
provided vivid, first-hand information about encounters he witnessed. But he, as
so many others, acknowledged no first-hand information that would implicate
Beltrones.

Ironically, the warrant issued as the result of the Mexico City meeting with
what turned out to be one -- and probably two -- supporters of Carrillo, served as
the basis for the only serious Mexican investigation of Carrillo undertaken before
the trafficker died July 4, 1997, while undergoing clandestine plastic surgery in
Mexico.
With the information provided by Beltroneses’ government, federal
authorities invoking forfeiture laws, confiscated extensive holdings of Carrillo,
including residences in Hermosillo and Kino Bay, and a 15,000-acre ranch
between Hermosillo and Guaymas. In addition, approximately 2,000-head of
expensive cattle were confiscated.
But these forfeitures were modest in comparison to what followed.
In a city such as Hermosillo, unexplained wealth -- such as that garnered by
narcotics traffickers -- attracts attention from all quarters. In an investigation
started at the behest of Beltrones, and carried out by US authorities, a thorough
analysis of Carrillo’s bank accounts was undertaken in Sonora.
Essentially, it was Beltrones own suspicion of certain high-level Mexican
authorities that led him to work with the US Customs Service and, to a lesser
extent, with DEA.
The analysis of deposits into accounts controlled by what the State had
determined were Carrillo front-men revealed balances in excess of $180 million.
The investigation, reported in the Times and other US media, took months to
complete, however. At the time that authorities announced they were freezing
accounts, only a fraction of that amount was recovered.
During that period, the investigation required the cooperation of two
Mexican federal agencies: the Secretary of Taxation and Public Credit and the
Federal Attorney General.
Beltrones believed that information from one or the other was leaked to
Carrillo’s operatives, allowing virtually 90 percent of the targeted money to be
transferred before it was frozen. Many asset seizures carried out against Carrillo

operatives in Sonora were done so by the Mexican Army, which rarely performs
such civil law-enforcement duties. In large measure, this was due to Beltrones’
distrust of federal civil agencies. Instead, he and other authorities sought support
from what he considered the lesser-compromised military.
(A story detailing how the money laundering operation worked and the
governor’s role in uncovering it was published in El Independiente newspaper, of
Hermosillo, on March 6, 1997. See Annex 6 for a copy of that story.)
Whatever the source of the leak that allowed laundered money to escape
confiscation, it did not come from the Sonora state government, say US law
enforcement officials who were in Hermosillo at the time.
In fact, then-US Consul in Hermosillo, Sandra Salmon, wrote a letter to
Beltrones on March 7, 1997, expressing the government’s gratitude for the
governor’s assistance.
An excerpt from the letter (in Spanish): "The government of the State of
Sonora has contributed enormously to this investigation, providing numerous
personal details about the suspects. This has enabled us to identify the association
between people that, under other circumstances, would have been difficult for our
lack of direct access to this type of confidential information, besides the number of
agent-hours necessary to carry out this task. This case is the most significant that
has been carried out by the Mexican government to date.” (See Annex 7 for a copy
of that letter and other correspondence from US consuls in Hermosillo during the
Beltrones administration.)
Information about this money-laundering was in the hands of Times
reporter Craig Pyes, too, when he interviewed Beltrones in Hermosillo. No
reference to any Beltrones role in assisting the US government appears in the
story, however.
Paradoxically, what is clear from subsequent interviews and revelations
contained in DEA documents is that shortly after Beltrones met with Mexico’s

attorney general and his two deputies, Beltrones’ name began to appear on
documents showing his support for Carrillo.

Chapter VII
How the Press Covers Narcos
“There were always rumors about Beltrones’ guilt, but there are always rumors
about the guilt of anyone in public office. That’s a part of the political atmosphere
in Mexico. I told the (New York Times) reporter that there was no way he was
going to turn up anything that we didn’t already know at the local level – and we
knew nothing. But he didn’t want to hear that.”
Adalberto Rosas
Former opposition leader, Partido Accion Nacional
Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico
There is no dearth of reporting on narcotics trafficking in Mexico if one
merely measures the amount of column inches in print media and minutes in
broadcast media.
What is lacking, however, is detail and, often, accuracy.
On a daily basis, Mexican newspapers and broadcast media in both nations
publish stories about shoot-outs, busts and seizures. Stories about public insecurity
and official corruption in Mexico – often taken directly from the Mexican media –
become the staples of US coverage of Mexico.
Mexican reporters and their foreign counterparts rarely report about
ongoing investigations, or investigative leaks, for neither has the know-how, the
sources or the willpower.
An enterprising medium, American or Mexican, for example, might have
reported on the irony that, despite accusations, there were few if any warrants
pending against those considered narcotics king-pins. A newspaper or television
station that was particularly well-connected might even have reported – at some
point – that it was Beltrones whose personal intervention created the first and only
arrest warrant against Carrillo Fuentes.
Instead, reporting on narcotics trafficking in Mexico is largely based on
eye-witness accounts, superficial “who-dunnit’s.”

Mexican media may, for example, report the seizure of a cocaine load by
the Federal Judicial Police near Benjamin Hill, Sonora and the arrest of several
people from Sinaloa.
But the press will not, as a rule, go into any greater depth than the incident
itself. Part of the reason is a legal system that, in contrast to US laws that allow
access to arrest information and subsequent proceedings, cuts off access to media.
Another is the risk of follow-up. If journalists and human rights workers in
the US possess a certain “shield” against intimidation and violence when it comes
to investigations, their Mexican counterparts have none. Pursuing a drug story is a
risky endeavor.
US reporters rarely pursue narcotics trafficking stories using anything other
than official sources in Mexico or the US.
Inexperience is the rule.
It is sufficiently difficult for an American reporter to “blend-in” while
doing the legwork on a story in the US. It is impossible to do this in Mexico. This
means that most reporting will be second or third hand.
American newspapers, almost without exception, keep reporters in Mexico
City for a two or three-year tour and expect them to write insightful and well-
documented stories with virtually no preparation. Most US reporters in Mexico
share sources and have minimal, if any, ties to the country.
These reporters often read the Mexican national papers, which themselves
are often inaccurate or biased, and the American reporters send dispatches to their
hometown papers without independent corroboration.
American reporters add the words “accused,” or “alleged” to stories, but it
is the rare foreign medium in Mexico that bases a narcotics trafficking story -- or
most others, for that matter -- without relying heavily on what has already been
published by the Mexican press.
And that is still not much to rely on.

With a few notable exceptions, Mexican papers are shackled by
circumstances.
For many decades, the majority of reporters in Mexico had but high school
degrees and minimal reporting skills. They were unaccustomed to writing
anything more than daily “notas,” and were not trained or expected to write
probing or investigative stories.
That has changed in recent years with the entry of a new generation of
college-educated, liberal-thinking, thorough reporters, but they are still in the
minority and are hindered by other factors.
A less than vigorous reporting tradition is further complicated by a legal
system that seldom holds inept or irresponsible journalists liable.
Mexican libel law is almost non-existent and virtually anything may be
printed without fear of legal consequences. Violence against journalists, it should
be noted, is sometimes based on the need to silence or otherwise intimidate them.
But just as often it stems from a human, “even-the-score mentality” which
emerges in a society that offers no legal or financial redress for libel or
defamation.
Out of this uncertain legal and political environment appears a journalistic
free-for-all.
That is, in Mexican media, the accusation that someone is a “narco,” or
narcotics trafficker, may be printed or broadcast in a casual, if not cavalier fashion.
On the national level, there are probably more politicians than not who have
been accused of narcotics trafficking or, in some way, being an accomplice to a
narcotics trafficker. At state and local levels, the charge is bandied about in a
similarly nonchalant fashion.
But Mexican readers apply an instant dose of skepticism to any accusation.
After all, they reason, the information has appeared in the daily paper, which is
already held in justifiably low repute. The reader knows that his paper rarely
discharges a legitimate investigative role.

If Keith Rosenblum is accused of being a narcotics trafficker in today’s
paper, the discerning reader of a Mexican paper will, reflexively ask, “Who has it
out for Keith Rosenblum?” Only later, might he ask, “Is Keith Rosenblum really a
narco?”
The intrinsic fallibility of Mexican stories about narcotics trafficking is
further hampered by the Mexican government’s refusal to disclose information
about its policies or its actions.
Lack of public access to official documents accounts for a part of this
shortcoming. There is no Mexican equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA), which essentially guarantees media access to most information about
police and judicial proceedings.
But more insidious than untrained reporters and lack of public disclosure
laws is the commercial and political role of the Mexican media.
Many newspapers and many broadcast media are not in the business of
making money as independent enterprises. They are not in the business of
providing impartial information to a demanding public.
Rather, many are owned or controlled by influential economic and political
groups whose loyalty is not to discerning readers and a consumer-oriented
readership-base that provides the medium with a profit.
They are beholden, instead, to an economic and political entity that has an
agenda that may be wholly incompatible with telling the truth or even bothering to
report a story.
Consequently, coverage of even routine stories such as a presidential
speech, a murder, an action by Pemex (the state-owned oil company) or the visit of
a foreign dignitary takes on an importance entirely apart from reader interest.
The author, who regularly accompanied reporters and photographers from
El Imparcial newspaper, which assisted the Times in its story on Beltrones,
witnessed this selective criterion in story selection on a daily basis. El Imparcial
regularly published critiques of its political enemies in the Sonoran government

and ignored accusations as serious as embezzlement or fraud against those it
supported. Such topics as police misconduct, gangland shootings and business
fraud are ignored entirely or blown out of proportion depending on the
newspaper’s entrenched interests.
(A cultural footnote: social page writers, who sell space directly to clients,
frequently write in great detail about the subjects of baptisms, quinceñeras or
weddings. Though it was widely suspected that the Gaxiola family –who worked
with the Carrillo Fuentes cartel – was involved in trafficking and laundering,
newspapers, like El Imparcial, still trumpeted the paid inserts of their social
events.)
The popularity of a charismatic figure at the grass roots of Mexican society
will not be reported by a medium friendly to a sitting president. A story about
violence against campesinos or foreign tourists may not find its way into a paper
or on to television for political reasons. In Sonora, years ago, a rape accusation
against the son of a prominent politician was entirely ignored.
The flip side of this policy is no less deceptive.
If political expediency requires that media don’t react to breaking or
significant news, it also obligates media to print and broadcast information that is
politically beneficial -- even if flagrantly false.
Political rivals are routinely attacked, and often immobilized or felled, by
stories that are slanted or false.
A newspaper may, finally, support with false flattery a politician,
businessman or lawyer that it needs.
Conversely, it may “take-out” an unfriendly politician, businessman or
lawyer with an unflattering article.
And what better way than to accuse someone of being associated with
narcotics?

Such an accusation is often a sure-bet: it damages reputations; it is almost
impossible to verify or disavow and there will be little or no legal liability (if,
indeed, there is even protest) if a falsely accused person plans to sue.
“Calling someone a narco today is the equivalent of, some 30 years ago,
having called someone a communist,” says Manuel Rocha, formerly a Deputy
Chief of Mission with the US Embassy in Mexico City. “The accusation is odious
and damaging. Defending oneself is nearly impossible.”
Certainly, one can try.
But exoneration is close to impossible.
Absent any system of legal redress, a citizen who embarks on a campaign
to demonstrate truth, establish innocence and clear his name is likely embarking
on one that, at best, will produce a Pyrrhic victory.
Truth may be established one day, but the political price -- that of
reputation and integrity -- has been exacted.

Chapter VIII
A Rite of Spring: US Media Say
Mexican Officials are Traffickers
“Essentially, the gangsters run the (DEA) investigators, who, out of stupidity,
venality, and careerism, pretend to chase the gangsters. The DEA in Mexico is
largely an instrument of the traffickers who seek to get some organ or other of the
great American press to publish anything they want published, which both the
right and left in this country (US) then applaud without a critical thought. I have
seen Mexican documents alleging that everyone in Zedillo government but Zedillo
and Minister of the Interior Labastida are on the traffickers’ payroll. All the
critical habits that American intellectuals right and left, developed during the
Cold War, seem to have disappeared in regard to the supposed War on Drugs.”
John Womack, Professor of Mexican History
Harvard University, Boston
One of the predictable rites of Washington in the Spring is that of conflict
with Mexico.
Every year, the US President must “certify” whether nations are fully
cooperating in the war against drugs.
On the surface, the process is simple. The White House, in consultation
with the President’s cabinet, judges whether other countries are helping the US
curtail the production and transit of illegal drugs.
At the same time, however, Congress holds hearings as well, listening to
testimony of the DEA and other agencies.
But in practice, the battle for certification is fought first in the mass media –
both print and broadcast.
The media reveals, based on un-named sources, that Mexican officials are
in cahoots with traffickers.
The disclosures are attributed to the US law enforcement community, but
not documented. They appear in such papers as the Times, Washington Post,

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