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The Army General Who is Shaking Up Mexico's Biggest Drug Lords
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by Border Reporter | April 26, 2008 at 08:37 am
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A Tijuana news Web site is reporting 15 dead in at least two different shootouts in Tijuana this morning. One of the victims was wearing a federal police uniform, the paper says; though that means nothing since cops work for traffickers who dress like cops all the time. A few of the dead were headshots, which makes me wonder if this was a battle or an execution - or both.
The virulent city is in even more of an uproar than usual as Mexico’s Army General in Tijuana has taken to accusing the local cops of protecting the narco-traffickers, kidnapping civilians, murder and creating terrific levels of mayhem. He published a letter in a local Tijuana paper blaming federal, state and local police officials of working for the Tijuana Cartel. Among his accusations, that the anti-kidnapping squad was actually a squad of kidnappers. The Los Angeles Times Plaza blog published an in-depth account of this political drama last Thursday.
One of the first fallouts from the general’s accusations was Sonia Patricia Navarro, a high-level official from the state attorney general’s office. El Universal reports the governor fired her yesterday.
The general, Sergio Aponte Polito is a fascinating study in sheer balls.
Last January, the General stirred an uproar in the state of Sonora when he casually stated that the entire state government was in collusion with the Sinaloan narco-traffickers.
““These are criminal gangs that have been working for years and they were only able to grow and fortify themselves because they count on the complicity of the authorities. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have been as successful in their activities as they’ve been,” he told the local Televisa affiliate.
The PRI-istas snapped, accusing the general of libelling them but not quite daring to turn the argument around on him.
Mexicans in Baja California and Sonora have been quietly cheering the general on and, to a certain extent, so have I. Of course, the last time anyone got excited over a Mexican Army official, it was Gen. Guttierez Rebollo, who, it turned out, was simply attacking the Tijuana Cartel for Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
New York Times reporters, Julia Preston and Sam Dillon wrote an excellent account of the Rebollo case in “Opening Mexico.” And the movie “Traffic,” captured the general’s audacity beautifully.
We’ll see if Gen. Aponte Polito’s statememts had anything to do with the 15 executions this morning.
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Jordan Yerman
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 08:58 on April 26th, 2008
This is great work, as usual. It seems like there's too much financial incentive for cops in Sonora to play for both teams, though the risks are equally high.
(Also, though it's a work of fiction, have you read Queen of the South? It's set in Culiacán and the Strait of Gibraltar, following a woman through her narco-career, highlighting the paranoia and danger of that world)
at 10:10 on April 26th, 2008
I have read the Queen of the South, one of my favorite books. Then I found out about the real one, Sandra Avíla Beltrán, the Queen of the Pacific; whom, like the general is another fascinating case study in the world of Latin America's narco-traffickers.