I'm from Mexico City and lived in the U.S. for a total of more than 24 years. Now I'm back in Mexico. I realized I was seeing my country through the eyes of a native stranger. This is an attempt to process the differences, to explain Mexico to the U.S. and the U.S. to Mexico. With digressions along the way.

viernes, enero 14, 2005

The Illustrious Salinas de Gortari Family

Ex-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari's brother, Enrique, was (allegedly) assassinated at the beginning of December. To give you a little background, Salinas de Gortari was president from 1988 to 1994. He "officially" won the election with 50.4% of the vote, but it is widely known that Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas, the candidate of a coalition of several opposing parties, won the election. This was at a time, however, when the PRI was still in firm control, and they simply stole the election (for more on Mexico's political parties, read the Mexican Politics 101 post). Salinas de Gortari is probably most remembered for signing NAFTA. Now he's referred to as "el innombrable" (He Who Shall Not be Named). In any case, the Salinas de Gortari family is SHADY. They are extremely rich, with properties all over Mexico and the U.S., Swiss bank accounts, the whole bit. The ex-president's other brother, Raúl, is in jail for some kind of illegal money activity, and he was also arrested for masterminding the assassination of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, though the ex-president claims he was framed and I believe he's now been acquited for that charge. (People speculated he had Ruiz Massieu assassinated because he had threatened to reveal the family's links to drug trafficking.) There was also some speculation about whether Raúl had been behind the Colosio assasination in Tijuana (Luis Donaldo Colosio was going to be the PRI candidate after Salinas, but tension in the party resulted in his assassination and the rise of Ernesto Zedillo, who became the next president of Mexico.) Enrique, the one who was just murdered, was being investigated by Interpol regarding Swiss bank accounts. A real gem of a family, I tell you. And they started at a young age. As children, Carlos and Raúl killed one of their maids with a shotgun.
So the question is, is Enrique Salinas de Gortari really dead? There is some speculation that the body found may not have been his. But even if it was, something fishy is going on. The body was found in a car with a plastic bag over the head. The cause of death is allegedly asfixiation, but not with said plastic bag. And the murder did not take place where the body was found. Someone left the body in a car that was driven to a neighborhood in the state of Mexico. Security cameras recorded all of this, but no license plates are legible. Why the state of Mexico, when the murder is thought to have occurred in the D.F.? Could it be because the Salinas family has connections there? They were able to have the body incinerated only a couple of days after it was found. This is highly irregular. The authorities claim that all the necessary evidence was extracted, DNA samples taken, an autopsy performed. But now there is no body to confirm any of it. The DNA could have been taken from anywhere. I'm sure there's something behind this murder that implicates the ex-president's family.

2 Comments:

Blogger Ruth Kunstadter said...

Our taxi driver in Mexico City told us about this. It's amazing how everyone seems to know what's going on, yet no one seems to be able to do anything about it.

7:04 p.m.

 
Blogger Diana said...

Last month that bastard Salinas had the nerve to be a keynote speaker at a prestigious university on NAFTA. I wouldn't put anything past that family...

12:20 a.m.

 

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