After another day of brooding and gloominess in Guadalajara, I took advantage of a special “pilgrims” tour of San Juan de Los Lagos; a gorgeous Churrigueresque colonial gem in the highlands of north-eastern Jalisco. Other pilgrims arrived in a series of pedestrian, cyclist or horseback processions, which took days, weeks or months. The basilica is very beautiful with its looming twin towers, and is the second most visited shrine in Mexico. Upon arriving, I gasped at the sight of innumerable pilgrims lining the city streets. They had covered a great distance on their knees with the help of relatives who extended petates (mats made of dried palm-leaves) in their path right up to the altar of the basilica. It was an inspiring ... sickening sight!
San Juan (I could see for myself) was hurting from a rising level of violence. While there was no regular newspaper or other sources of information I could rely upon, some residents I spoke to admitted to having witnessed (or participated in) a number of violent affrays between the police and ne’er-do-wells. My God! This place is so quaint, elegant, historic and touristic that I would not have been more surprised than if it was Disneyland we’d been referring to; in this “sacred” town, violence of that sort was heretofore not known in their daily routine. The war declared by their president against narco-traffickers changed everything. Some of the destructive reactions have been attributed to the growing salience of drug abuse amongst Jalisco youngsters. While narco-trafficking from this state to America was a rumored concern amongst some enterprising San Juan families, addiction to these drugs was surfacing as a deadly anxiety for the community. San Juan is no longer a point of access and transit but sadly an end destination for these illegal substances.
As I got acquainted with the sights and reveled in the stupefying clang of tolling bells from the great towers of the basilica resounding boomingly in our ears, I over-heard heated discussions between locals. Gulping their flagons of beer in the open cafe’ and gesturing wildly and angrily, they had a row about a recently appointed tribunal in Guadalajara that was on the verge of sentencing the former municipal president, Alberto Valderama, to 25 years in prison for what it called “crimes against the people of Mexico” clandestine death squad activities, called and paid for by Michoacano drug-lords, during his autocratic 10-year tenure.
The 62-year-old Valderama, who had been the former mayor of a nearby-shithole town called Pegueros and allegedly an important transit center for narco-trafficking, was convicted of 30 murders committed by the vigilante-hit squad, Los Lobos de Lagos de Moreno (The Wolves of Lagos gang), he’d ordered about in the early 1990s, and the kidnappings of a businessman and a journalist. The individual being discussed, naturally, concerned me not, but the greater reality of narco-related murders and destruction was everybody’s constant worry.
The three-judge court had pronounced the previous Tuesday that there was no question Valderama authorized the hit squad’s creation and a cover-up of 50 additional, unsolved murders. He also moved to crush opposition from reformer politicians railing against his corruption and criminality. Valderama told the court that he would appeal. His federal-deputy daughter, Regina, said on the local television news that the verdict would only strengthen her campaign against the Federales and their war against narco-traffickers, which she felt was doing the country more harm than good. The whole shebang was such a web of intrigue, libel, accusation, and retribution that it was no wonder the locals were so worked up about it all.
Later, once the anxious towns-folk had gathered around their television sets or radios to learn of the latest developments, it was announced that presiding judge, Eligio de Martin, had told a hushed courtroom there was no question Valderama had authorized the creation of the Lobos; two days later desperadoes tried to assassinate him. The court accused them of having killed at least 50 people during a fifteenth-month long murder spree as Valderama abused his office to enrich himself with marijuana and crystal-meth-amphetamine money. Valderama had not anticipated a guilty verdict. He sat alone taking notes as the verdict was read after a 9-month televised trial that produced a 400-page sentence.
The daughter, Regina, having quite a row with the press, was among those in the courtroom. The 33-year-old federal deputy vowed she would go to Los Pinos (the official residence of the president of Mexico) and demand a pardon for her father or she would accuse the federal government of having been in cahoots with the drug-lords ~ at this point in Mexican history everybody was prepared to believe the worst about their elected officials, and with plenty of reasons.
Outside the Guadalajara police base where the trial was being held, pro- and anti-Valderama activists fought each other with clubs, fists, knives, and rocks (and maybe a few concealed guns) after the sentence was announced, with chants of “Valderama innocent!” and “Valderama killer!” shouted by rival bands. It was also reported that perhaps 40 relatives of victims clashed with about 300 Valderama supporters. Riot police neutralized the melee and no serious injuries were immediately reported ~ the local San Juan beer-swizzlers were poised to throw a riot of their own. In Mexico, anything is possible!
As I studied the case (in passing) it was interesting to note that none of the trial’s 80 witnesses directly fingered Valderama for having ordered killings, arson, kidnappings or “disappearances,” but the court said he bore culpability nonetheless by allowing an illegal killing apparatus to be set up right under his mayoral nose.
The court then ruled that Valderama’s disgraced police chief and close collaborator, Gonzalo Montes-de-Ame, was directly in charge of the Lobos gang. It noted also that Valderama had freed jailed Lobos members with a blanket 1997 amnesty, without the governor’s knowledge, for civil employees, and bribed city lawyers engaged in a “very complete and extensive” cover-up of the group’s misdeeds.
Valderama had already been sentenced to six years in prison for abuse of his office and still faced two corruption trials, the first set to begin the following Spring, on charges including bribing local officials and paying off a TV station. And to think this guy was a native of Jalisco, just like my relatives. What a shame!
Despite being the first democratically elected mayor of another party, he was tried for rights violations in his own state. Valderama remained remarkably popular, however, among the voters of his region. His successor, Ignacio Acosta, had maintained many of his laissez-faire policies, which had attracted the narco-traffickers in the first place. Most of the rabble-rousers in the San Juan cafe’ and taverns in fact approved of his administration, though it ended in disgrace in 2000 when videotapes showed Montes-de-Ame, now serving a 20-year term for corruption and gun-running, bribing lawmakers and businessmen in Valderama’s mayoral office. Valderama had fled to Cuba and America, then returned five years later via Guatemala, whose government extradited him for smuggling workers.
I took it upon myself to read up a bit more about this guy since everybody else couldn’t stop talking about him. It turned out that in its first bloody raid, the Lobos gang had killed 19 people including an 8-year-old with silencer-equipped machine guns during a raid on a fiesta in August 1991 in the Altos de Jalisco district. Seven months later, in March 1992, the so-called Lobos gang “disappeared” nine students and a leftist professor at CUCEA in the University of Guadalajara. In both cases, the intended targets were alleged sympathizers of the Los Olvidados, a vigilante-counter group which was killing members of the Lobos gang and colluding narco-traffickers with nearly daily car bombings at the time but was all but extinguished after its charismatic leader, Abimael Aguilar, was captured in a Guadalajara safe house in October, 1992.
He is now serving a life sentence at the Tres Marias prison-island, but some 100 Olvidados remnants remain active in the highlands of Jalisco, financed by the very drug trade they were trying to eradicate.
Valderama’s troubles weren’t limited to murder accusations. He would be also convicted of two 1993 kidnappings; the 10-day abduction of businessman Carlos Montesino, and the one-day abduction of Jacobo Gorriti-Larios, a leading journalist who h
ad criticized the state government’s shuttering of the opposition-led state assemblies and courts. In his final Friday appeal, Valderama cast himself as a victim of political persecution, saying the charges against him reflected a “double standard.” Yes, the beer-swizzlers were totally on his side and rued the day they had voted for an opposition party. But why wasn’t current Mayor Acosta, many asked themselves, also being prosecuted? It was from Acosta, who also preceded him in office, that Valderama inherited a messy turf-conflict between industrial interests and local peasants that would claim 700 lives over a ten year period.
Acosta denied responsibility for any human rights abuses during his 1985-91 administration and now had the authority to influence the outcome with respect to Valderama. Nevertheless, Guadalajara Human rights advocates called the verdict historic ~ never before had local potentates been convicted for crimes against illiterate peasants. “After years of evading justice,” said an anti-Valderama drunkard in defiance of his contrariwise companions, “He is finally being held to account for some of his chingaderas,” (bullshit) ~ he was promptly slugged and booted out of the tavern, but not before spilling his mug of beer on my lap!
It all seemed to me that the Guadalajara court had shown the country that seemingly untouchable city bosses protected by crime organizations together with law-enforcement agencies could not expect to get away with serious crimes. Many, I am sure, breathed a secretive sigh of relief, in spite of the raucousness of his supporters.
In neighboring Michoacan, state boss Victor Orozco-Pacheco, guilty of similar crimes, avoided trial for health reasons until his death at 71 a couple of years before. Jalisco residents generally agreed with the verdict. Many voters who had supported him believed he was guilty in the human rights case while everybody else was certain he was guilty of corruption. Even so, they really, really liked him.
Why the extensive mention of Valderama? Oh, it might have something to do with the fact that Eligio de Martin is one of my family’s closer relations, an uncle of Consuelo, Abigail, et cetera, in fact. I learned this by even stranger circumstances. Before leaving for Sinaloa, I received a text-call from Samuel who wanted to personally wish me God’s speed before my departure. He brought Vicente with him, whom by now was calmer and more resigned to his recent loss. I got to talking with them about all the Valderama hub-bub. Well, to my unending consternation, Samuel confessed to having flirted with the Lobos gang, and they gave him marijuana and chrystal-meth in exchange for some illegal favors. Consequently, he and Vicente grew attached to the gang, and were practically addicted to the amphetamines (never mind the pot, because no pot-smoker will ever admit to the fact that marijuana is addictive). All consequences are therefore due to specific causes, thus my having received an education about Jalisco criminals and justice officials was due to the coincidence of learning about my relation to the Judge, and the drug-abuse of my second-degree nephew.
God! What’s next in this crazy search for family roots?
A PIRATE’S LIFE FOR ALL
The latest irony about Judge Eligio’s relation to our family, and the sad revelation that Samuel had been caught up with the meth-amphetamine abuse constantly taxed my brain. After two tiresome weeks in Jalisco, I bade a few fond and sentimental adieus, and took a train for Sinaloa ~ the sea and the western winds beckoned, and I wanted to get away from big cities for a spell. After nearly 8 hours, the trained screeched into Los Mochis station where some damned bats accidentally (I assumed) attacked me while going after mosquitoes and flies. From there I would head for the coast.
Topolobampo is a sea-port in northwestern Sinaloa, right on the Gulf of California, and my next destination. People-wise it was typical of many a notable fishing-town in this area, and rife with Mestizos, nacos (very stupid natives), Criollos, and many goofy gabachos (American tourists). It is what locals call “a big small town.” It is also part of the Ahome municipality, not far from Los Mochis. It has only a few thousand inhabitants, but it is not what you’d call a sleepy beach-town. The port, always infested with greedy sea-gulls, connects the states of the north through the Chihuahua-Pacific Railroad (for which my grand-father Fernando Rivera, on my mother’s side, worked as engineer and union boss for many years), which has a terminus in Los Mochis. It is also the eastern port for the daily car-ferry linking to Baja California through La Paz. After taking in a local shrimp cocktail with some Corona beer, I learned that Topolobampo had been the site of a crazy “Utopian” colony in the late 19th Century, and some people were trying to revive it ~ an ex-hippie’s plan owed to a marijuana-induced inspiration. For all those determined narco-traffickers out there, Topolobampo is also the beginning of the international trade corridor: “La Entrada al Pacifico,” that ends near the Midland-Odessa, Texas area (a fact which smuggling pirates know too well).
There was a lot of piracy going on in the West Coast it turned out, though it was nothing the Mexican Navy couldn’t handle. So, the question was begged: Why weren’t they doing more about it?
For the first three months of 2009, Sinaloa’s notorious pirates faded from the local headlines as a new, token Mexican naval force moved in, and many observers thought the pirates were running scared. Let’s not be hasty: the pirates had hijacked at least six barques in the last three months. Many believed they were sham hijackings, and that the ships were loaded with drugs actually bound for the “pirates.” It was a way, some believed, of throwing the naval federales off the scent so that if the pirates were caught, the sham crew could get away pretending to be victimized “fishermen.”
Using a new strategy, notwithstanding, they were functioning further away from warships patrolling the Gulf of Mexico. They no longer had to fight the choppy waters that always agitate the seas off Sinaloa during every season of the year. This has allowed the sea bandits to come back in force seizing small, but totally packed, vessels over a short period.
“The weather has improved west of Topolobampo and they’ve realized they have much more freedom of action down to the south because the brotherhood is not there in great numbers,” remarked an old salt as he carried his fish. “We’re going to end up probably playing a cat-and-mouse game in the next six months.”
Enough said; obviously the old guy had witnessed many a piratical fracas in the recent past.
The lull in profitable attacks was due to the fact the pirates found it more tricky to strike within the gulf-port where the under-equipped Mexican warships had concentrated their reprisals in order to protect this most important of local shipping routes. Now, the organized fishermen said, the pirates have moved much of their mischief further south, targeting ships as they come out of the Mazatlan Channel. “It’s exactly the same tactics as before, it’s just a different area ... Perhaps they’re trying to get the navy to spread their assets more widely,” The old Salt surmised as he scraped the scales off of his catch. He further noted that a better climate was also invigorating him for their attacks. He spoke with what seemed like a miasma of anxiety hovering over his head because hostile eaves-droppers might be listening to his careless remarks.
The pirates were known to have received millions of pesos in ransom payments or drug-pay-offs with low-profile seizures in the last year that included American and South-American cargo ships, and a Venezuelan ship loaded with small arms, all of which were later released. But while the sea-faring desperadoes seized a notable percentage of the vessels they’d targeted in the last couple of years, their rate of boardings in 2009 plummeted to 13. Recent attacks since I’d crossed the border into Mexico demonstrated a new strategy: they were moving further out to sea and down the Pacific coast.
One reason is that surveillance in the Gulf of Topolobampo is higher, with unmanned drones borrowed from the USA, helicopters and aircraft flown from shore. The helicopters had frequently intervened in attacks, firing at the desperadoes or even picking up willing hands who jumped overboard. The fishermen just shook their heads.
But one local manager at the customs office complained that
the coast guard patrols are poorly coordinated. He pointed to a recent case where one of the coast-guards escorting a vessel did not see a Mexican warship for over 100 miles and then came across three at once. At other times, he charged, warships were idling in Mazatlan harbor instead of out patrolling; he insisted he did not want to publicly criticize naval forces, but the pirates were literally getting away with murder, and the patrols always arrived too late.
He admitted that, “the Mexican navy alone will never be the complete solution to piracy.” And, he went on to explain, “Even with the increasing number of coastal patrol boats operating in our area, it’s a vast region you’re talking about an area well beyond the twelve-mile limit, and they have the whole Pacific Ocean open as an escape route ... The closest naval vessel could be days away.”
I honestly did not know what to make of the situation. The drug-runners and their piratical escorts seemed able to overcome every impediment and the odds were definitely in their favor, despite all the tough talk from Presidente Calderon’. The local fishermen and wharf-rats had no faith in their government. The customs official, nonetheless, clung to his faith in the coastal patrols, insisting they had proven to be a deterrent. He also told me, “The number of ships hijacked reflects a diminishing number of ships going through. Now if they were to go through the Topolobampo corridor ... there is a risk that they might be fired upon. But the measures the coast guard put in place, and the security measures that we’ve encouraged the merchant shipping to take, have had a strong effect.”
A Wetback in Reverse Page 29
