The Guadalajara Reporter

Looking at the de la Madrid legacy: drug trafficking on a large scale tested federal government’s response, found it useful

When Miguel de la Madrid, who died April 1, at 77, began his six-year term as Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) president in 1982, he inherited from his mentor, President Jose Lopez Portillo (1976-1982), a trashed economy, and a lavish and unabashed level of corruption in every sector of government. Lopez Portillo was one of three consecutive megalomaniacal presidents who had brought Mexico to it knees, destroying its economy by the end of each of their sexenios (administrations), shattering the public’s  bruised confidence in critical government institutions, even in its own calloused ability to judge the sanity and harmfulness of its leaders.

Faced with this degree of destabilization, de la Madrid, who had worked in government banking and finance, but had no political experience, seemed ignorant of, or too overwhelmed, to note the bourgeoning threat of Mexico’s politically well-connected drug lords. Narcotics had become a touchy issue before. In 1969, United States President Richard Nixon launched Operation Intercept, checking every vehicle entering the U.S., paralyzing border traffic. In 1975, under Washington pressure, a campaign to eradicate Mexican marijuana and poppy fields was launched, and vast fields of plants were destroyed and hundreds of traffickers in both countries jailed. Washington felt self-righteous and Mexico felt put upon. Victory over the “problem” which threatened bilateral relations, was declared. The shrewdest traffickers — Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, Ernesto Fonseca and Rafael Caro Quintero — not only survived, but thrived. They simply moved to Guadalajara when soldiers began arriving in Sinaloa.

De la Madrid’s “moral renovation” campaign promise did bring down some obvious, expendable officials and their subordinates, but it didn’t last long. De la Madrid was sincere, but naive, suggested one long-time political hand. “To end corruption,” he argued, “would be to saw off one leg of the ‘system’.” And soon, de la Madrid reluctantly agreed that centuries-old habits could not be broken. He was recognizing the limits of his power.

But by 1978 Lopez Portillo, flouting his lack of understanding of his own culture, basically expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from Mexico. He banned DEA flights verifying the U.S.-funded, Mexican-executed eradication of marijuana and poppy fields, and disarmed the few remaining agents. Then, in 1985, under de la Madrid, longtime drug lord Jaime Herrera Herrera was arrested, and many people‘s hopes picked up that the new president was aware how the narcotics trade was undermining Mexican governance. But Herrera was sent from a Mexico City prison back to  his home state, Durango, where he was released after six months. That this did not occur immediately, prompted gunmen to assassinate Durango’s public security chief, his son, bodyguard and female friend in downtown Durango as they left a fiesta for U.S. singer, Vicki Carr.

This incident, along with some one hundred other headline-making drug crimes could not have escaped de la Madrid‘s attention, primarily because the remaining DEA agents submitted detailed reports on them, and made sure reporters and editors were aware, despite the DEA’s low opinion of journalists. Mexico’s news folk were strategically paid off by government officials.

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