Narrative Interlude #9
Parque Bicentenario
Mexico City, Federal District
March 21, 1994
11:15 AM
Mexico City, Federal District
March 21, 1994
11:15 AM
Ernesto Zedillo shivered with agitation as he walked along the unkempt pathway. Shoulders bunched up almost to his ears, gaze set straight ahead to avoid the sinister eyes he was sure were watching him from behind every trash can and tree branch, Zedillo could feel his nerves dancing the zapateado on the back of his neck as he adjusted his arm, keeping the leather-bound binder carefully concealed beneath his blazer.
He was really worrying himself too much. With his graying hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and near-constant look of befuddlement, the rabbity economist was probably one of the least conspicuous men in North America. Besides, Mexico City’s finest had far more profitable things to worry about than an ex-cabinet secretary taking a midday stroll through the park. And, yet, Zedillo couldn’t help but fear that his every step struck the ground with enough force to shake the Earth below it, alerting the entire capital to the fact that he carried in his hand the dynamite that would blow the corrupt edifice of PRI power to smithereens and bring the entire system crashing down in massive a ball of flame.
As he walked, he lamented just how far he’d seen the PRI fall over the course of his career. Until age fourteen, Zedillo had been a humble mechanic’s son from Mexicali, just another boy adrift in the wayward poverty of Mexico’s outermost fringes. Then, the system, recognizing talents Zedillo himself hadn’t even noticed, had plucked him out of the rabble and whisked him off to Mexico City, putting him through high school, the National Polytechnic Institute, and Yale’s Department of Economics on full scholarships. In his time at the Central Bank and the Budget Secretariat, he’d seen more than his share of partisan sleaze, but the politicos had typically let him and his colleagues do their work without too much hassle. By now, though, the PRI had degenerated to such an extent that it was unrecognizable. The system had always had a kleptocratic edge to it, but now, the average priísta seemed to have no other objectives in life but to gorge himself on public resources. The PRI had never been particularly kind to the opposition, but now, it seemed that all independent political organization was punishable by imprisonment, while the faintest whisper of dissent meant a swift visit from one of Secretary Hank’s OIP goon squads. And while the seedier elements of el sistema had always had nebulous ties to the drug trade, these days Zedillo found himself wondering whether the Government Secretariat even bothered sending DFS agents paychecks anymore.
Zedillo had hoped he could forget his disgust with the system by resigning from the Cabinet. But he knew from his old colleagues at the Budget Secretariat—his old subordinates, really, though Zedillo didn’t like to think in those terms—that the depravity of the system had reached heights that were impossible to ignore. Despite Manuel Bartlett’s best efforts to conceal it, his Faustian bargain with the drug cartels had become common knowledge among the high-ranking bureaucrats (someone had to actually manage the government’s ultra-top-secret accounts, after all), and when Zedillo first caught wind of it, he’d refused to believe it. For all that Manuel Bartlett was a ruthless, domineering authoritarian, the man had always seemed to truly believe he was acting in the best interests of Mexico. For Bartlett to knowingly, consciously barter away the country's national security to a cabal of murderous drug lords was simply unthinkable. Zedillo had pleaded with his former coworkers for proof, and, out of respect, they’d handed it over. And as the former Budget Secretary pored over the thick sheaf of charts, rubrics, and bank statements, he had gradually forced himself to accept that the regime’s most generous supporters were international criminals.
As terrifying as this truth was, Zedillo knew better than to expect his fellow bureaucrats to do anything about it. Not because they were fierce, partisan loyalists—indeed, after enduring four straight years of outrageous graft and fiscal depravity, many had told Zedillo point blank that they would be voting for Porfirio Muñoz Ledo. But however these men had come to feel about the system, they were still part of it. Some had been born into it, the sons of well-to-do families whose UNAM acceptance letters had come enclosed with the thank-you letters from local PRI fundraising committees. Others, like Zedillo, had worked their way up, scrimming and scrounging for years until the established powers finally noticed them and gave them a spot in the hierarchy. But wherever they came from, for these men to betray the PRI’s darkest secrets—not just by whispering them into each others’ ears, but by releasing them to the world—would mean undermining the order to which they had devoted their entire professional lives. Now, if someone else were to expose those secrets, they certainly wouldn’t rush to defend the system, nor would they weep for its demise. But neither would they go out of their way to risk their careers or their reputations. These weren’t men of action, they were men of reaction.
For twenty years, Zedillo had been the exact same way. The mindset had stayed with him even after he left the cabinet; the thought of single-handedly torpedoing the Mexican political system shook every bone in Zedillo’s instinctively conservative body, and when he’d first received the incriminating binder, he had kept it hidden under his pillow for months, fearing the enormous repercussions if its contents escaped to public scrutiny. But the great, imposing ziggurat of PRI hegemony was best viewed from the outside, and as an insider-turned-outsider, Zedillo had been forced to accept that some systems are worth destroying, no matter what sort of Shelleyan monster takes their place.
Zedillo was suddenly brought back from his ruminations when he saw the woman sitting on the appointed park bench, casually clad in shorts and a white muslin shirt. She turned to look in his direction and he did everything he could to avoid returning her gaze; as his feet brought him closer, the binder he still carried beneath his jacket seemed to grow heavier and heavier with every step. Finally, as he prepared to pass the bench, he undid his button, stiffened up and prepared to make the drop.
__________
Xanic von Bertrab bristled as she saw the man out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look, but she could barely believe her eyes. Was he…was he wearing a suit? To the park? In thirty-degree weather?
Well, at least she knew for sure that it was him. Come to think of it, now that she was actually looking at the guy, she had a tough time imagining him sashaying down the street in jeans and a camiseta.
The leather-bound object poking out from underneath the man’s jacket snapped Xanic back into focus. As the man approached the bench and opened his blazer, Xanic calmly turned to face forward. The man passed and the binder fell out and struck the bench with a thud loud enough to alert anyone who was paying attention; luckily, no one was paying attention. Xanic quickly scooped up the binder and deposited it into her lap while the man buttoned up his jacket and scurried along down the path. Xanic waited until he had disappeared around a corner, then got up and started back in the opposite direction.
She couldn’t hide the binder under a jacket, so instead she held it close to her chest like a sacred talisman. If the mysterious, suited man had told the truth during their phone conversation, then the information in this binder, when paired with the river of muck Lydia and Xanic had raked up in their months-long hunt for evidence, would be enough to shatter the international community’s trust in Manuel Bartlett, crush Señora Sephora’s chances of winning the presidential election, and quite possibly set the PRI at war with itself. But only if the entire world could be made to see it. And that meant getting it back to the two-room rathole Xanic and Lydia rented quickly, safely and without any distractions. So, when Xanic exited the park and got onto the street, her first and only priority was keeping the binder safe. But with every step, it seemed to grow hotter and heavier in her hands. She was holding what might end up being the biggest single scoop in Mexican political history. How could she reasonably expect herself not to immediately tear it open and start devouring its contents? Every second she resisted the urge was a singular agony.
For perhaps seven minutes, Xanic withstood the compulsion to stop and read and read and read until her eyeballs burst from the strain. But resistance was futile. Finally overtaken by impatience, Xanic ducked into an empty alleyway, leaned against a mud-brick wall, and opened to the first page…
Mexico City, Federal District
April 5, 1994
3:03 PM
April 5, 1994
3:03 PM
“So you will support us?”
General Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo’s bald head was shiny enough on its own, but the globules of sweat which had emerged on his scalp in response the stuffiness of the room and the glare of the overhanging light made it even more reflective. As he nodded his response to Porfirio Muñoz Ledo’s question, little pinpricks of light danced and bounced off his head, magnified through the wide lenses of his coke-bottle glasses.
General Vinicio Santoyo Feria, seated beside General Gutiérrez, spoke up. “If, after the presidential election, you need us to ensure a peaceful and harmonious transfer of power,” Santoyo said, “we’ll be there.” General Alfredo Navarro Lara, seated to the left of his colleagues, signaled his agreement.
Porfirio Muñoz Ledo returned Navarro’s nod. “I sincerely appreciate your commitment to democratic principles,” he replied, more than a bit disingenuously. “Now,” he began, clearing his throat, “what will you gentlemen be expecting in return? Federal appointments, perhaps? If I do win the presidency, I’ll certainly need men of honor and integrity to run the Defense Secretariat.” That single criterion alone would have excluded all three Generals from government service, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Not that it mattered anyway. “Oh, fuck no,” said General Gutiérrez as the other generals physically recoiled at the thought of that much work. “All we want is for you to end this stupid war against the carranclanes down south. Send us up north where the narcos are.” Porfirio’s jaw tightened as he spared a glance to the left. Malcolm (or whatever the CIA operative’s real name was) was watching tufts of smoke twist and climb their way out of the end of his cigarette. Had he caught the hidden meaning?
If he hadn’t, he would in a moment. Ending the war against the Zapatistas would be no trouble at all, but giving the Army free license to fraternize with the cartels was going to be a lot more problematic. Still, Porfirio had known this was coming. The loyalties of these fine men in uniform lay with the highest bidder, and if the opposition presidential candidate wanted their support, he’d better be prepared to shell out for it.
“You’d like to fight the drug syndicates?” Porfirio asked, grinning in faux admiration. “How very noble of you. Naturally, I assume you’d prefer a free hand in dealing with them—no pesky bureaucrats breathing down your necks about little trivialities and technicalities, right?” That got Malcolm’s attention. Nothing had moved but his eyes, but they were drilling a hole into Porfirio’s skull.
General Santoyo cleared his throat. “Well, of course, senador, if we were to speculate in any legitimate business ventures during our service,” he replied as the trail of smoke from Malcolm’s cigarette tapered off, “we hope that your government would respect those interests.”
For several years in the mid-1980s, General Santoyo had been Chief of Staff to the Defense Secretariat, serving as the Army’s official liaison to the press and earning a reputation as a smooth talker. Then, in 1985, with the drug trade rapidly spiraling out of control, Miguel de la Madrid had transferred General Santoyo to the nation’s narcotics capital of Guadalajara to show how serious he was about solving the problem. After four years spent snorting coke and cavorting with prostitutes alongside Mexico’s best-renowned drug lords, Santoyo’s strenuous devotion to Army work had been replaced by an addiction to the luxuries of the high life. But beneath the materialistic shell, the way with words remained.
Porfirio shifted in his chair and stole a glance back at Malcolm, who was now staring at the three men in uniform with extreme suspicion. Now came the tough part. Porfirio needed to give the generals what they wanted, so that he could count on their support in case things got ugly on election day. But if he wanted to have anything resembling an effective presidency, he’d also need a whole lot of goodwill from the big, not-always-friendly giant up north, which was personified in this room by Malcolm. If he gave these uniformed greedbags too much freedom to putz around with drug lords, Washington’s trust in him would be poisoned before he even stepped into Los Pinos. Porfirio had already decided how he was going to thread this needle—he just had to pray that it would work.
He sucked in a breath. “Of course, General,” he said, soothingly. “You can rest assured my administration will respect your property rights.” He resisted the urge to check in on Malcolm, who was surely glaring with horror. “Yours,” he continued, “and no one else’s.”
General Navarro furrowed his brow. Porfirio spoke on, swapping out the smooth, euphemistic tone for flat, unadorned matter-of-factness.
“If I win, you three can do whatever the hell you want. I’ll set the Army loose on the cartels for a while, let you and your underlings fool around with the traffickers, buy your vacation homes and hold your coke-fueled orgies.” Malcolm was probably balling his fist tight enough to bend his cigarette in half. Hopefully, the next part would cool the CIA envoy’s passions.
“But you all know I can’t let that go on forever,” Porfirio continued. “I won’t stand for it, and our fine friends up north,” he nodded to Malcolm, “certainly won’t stand for it. A year or two at most, and the knives are going to come out. Now, everyone in this room will be safe—I swear to God that as long as I’m President, you three can extort and abuse and profiteer until your hearts give out. But don’t go around telling all your underlings that they have the same privileges. When federal agents pull Captain Pepito out from under a pile of hookers with his nose covered in cocaine, don’t expect me to come running to the rescue.”
Silent air as the generals took in the terms of the offer, exchanging a cryptic, hushed series of whispers, shrugs and nods. Porfirio, meanwhile, finally spared a glance at Malcolm. He was the picture of serenity, watching the generals murmur in perfect quietude as the trail from his cigarette thinned and died off. After a minute or two of whispering, General Santoyo turned back to Porfirio and spoke up. “Senator,” he began, “we have considered the virtues of your proposal, and they are numerous. But there’s one part of it that we can’t bring ourselves to countenance. If you maintain the power to effectively prosecute lesser officers, what assurance do we have that you won’t turn that power on us once your authority is secure?”
Dammit.
Well, it was a good point. Porfirio rested his elbows on the table and clasped his hands, using his thumbs as a makeshift chin rest. The silence hung hot in the cramped room, and to escape the generals’ probing gazes, Porfirio dared another glance at Malcolm. His brow was bent in contemplation. Was he—was he going to say something?
Shit. Porfirio started to panic. If he let this CIA spook dictate his policy to the men whose support he needed desperately, what reason would they have to suspect he was anything more than George Bush’s puppet? What reason would they have to respect him or his promises?
Malcolm’s lips parted. He drew in a breath and readied his vocal cords. Overtaken by impulse, Porfirio slashed through the humid silence, almost yelling: “HOW ABOUT THIS!”
The generals flinched. Malcolm stopped short. Porfirio tightened his jaw.
Well, he’d have to say something now. Hopefully it didn’t come out too crazy.
“How about this,” he repeated, considerably calmer this time. Then he launched into an improvised spiel. “If I win, then I make you three my drug czars. Undersecretaries of Defense or something like that, or maybe I’ll make a whole new secretariat and put you in charge. Either way, it’ll pay well.” As every new facet of the plan revealed itself, Porfirio noticed each of the generals becoming visibly more excited.
“You’ll all preside over an unprecedented decline in cartel activity—that won’t be hard at all, since Caro and Carrillo are too busy killing each other at the moment to do any business, and it’ll take at least a year or two for their henchmen to pick up all the pieces.” The words were coming out as fast as Porfirio could think of them. “As for the power, do whatever you want with it. Skim as much off the traffickers you can, do all the cocaine your shriveled old livers can handle. I’ll even send you on business trips if you want—five-star suites at the Washington Hilton, all on the government’s tab.” General Navarro’s eyes lit up. The words were spilling out so fast now, Porfirio was struggling to avoid tripping over his own tongue.
“Then, in a year or two, you’ll all retire with honor. Buy yourselves retirement homes—I mean, hell, buy yourselves retirement compounds—burn any file that makes you nervous about incrimination, and ride off into the sunset with your trophy wives and military pensions.” Porfirio paused for a breath and a grin. Wrapping up his pitch, he finally permitted himself to slow down: “Power. Prestige. Generous salaries, and not too much work”, he recapped, holding up his hand and ticking off a finger for each perk. What do you think?”
Porfirio expected another thoughtful pause, but there was none.
“We’ll do it!” Exclaimed General Navarro with childlike enthusiasm. The hasty nods of the other two officers confirmed that the sentiment was unanimous. Malcolm was characteristically silent, but his widened eyes betrayed a sense of humbled shock and awe.
It was only then that Porfirio Muñoz Ledo realized what exactly he had said to the assembled officers. He had just auctioned off a position of immense power and influence to men he knew were rotten to the core, in exchange for political support. Would Manuel Bartlett even stoop that low?
Porfirio reached out to shake General Navarro’s outstretched hand. Yes, Manuel Bartlett most certainly would stoop this low. And if he did, it would be for no other reason than to maintain his desperate grip on power. Porfirio, on the other hand, had made this deal with devil because the country required it of him. Mexico simply could not take another six years of PRI despotism, and so Porfirio simply had to win the presidential election. And to do that, he had to shake hands with crooked, greedy generals. It was unsavory, it was dodgy, and it was disreputable. But it was for the good of Mexico, and that outweighed all else.
Right?
Porfirio froze mid-handshake.
Bartlett would say the exact same thing.
That much, Porfirio knew for sure. Embarrassing as it was to admit, Manuel Bartlett and Porfirio Muñoz Ledo went way back. Despite the vast political gulf which divided the two men today, there had been a time when they had both been young, rising stars in the PRI hierarchy in search of alliances and allegiances. They had never been particularly close, but they’d rubbed shoulders plenty of times, and over the decades, Porfirio had gotten to know Bartlett just about well enough to make personal judgements. Manolito’s fanatic, almost religious devotion to the ruling party had always seemed just a little bit…out there. Yet it had always seemed rooted in the firm belief that eternal, unchallenged PRI hegemony was the best-case scenario for Mexico. Sure, every one of Bartlett’s corrupt decisions was designed specifically to preserve and perpetuate his own unrivaled dominance. But behind Bartlett’s Nietzschean will to power, Porfirio realized, there lay a sincere, earnest conviction that by trampling over free speech, spitting on democracy and locking up everyone who looked at him funny, he was doing what was right for Mexico. Bartlett was wrong, of course. But then, how did Porfirio know that he was right?
General Navarro, slightly confused by the stiffness in the opposition senator’s arm, nevertheless shook it and passed it on to his colleague. Under his breath, Porfirio sighed. Well, he didn’t know. He couldn’t know, not in complete and total certainty. All he could do was believe in his heart of hearts that his being elected president would indeed be the best thing for Mexico, and hope with equal might that history ended up agreeing with him.
Mexico City, Federal District
April 12, 1994
3:03 PM
April 12, 1994
3:03 PM
Sam Dillon, chief correspondent for The New York Times’s Mexico City bureau, shut the binder and looked back across the table.
“This is…” he trailed off while he rummaged around in his journalistic vocabulary for a suitable adjective.
“This is fucking huge.” Sam’s wife and co-correspondent, Julia Preston, [1] got it in two.
Lydia Cacho nodded. “It will be fucking huge, if you convince your editors to print it.”
Julia nodded in contemplative agreement. “You say you got this from a government employee?” She asked in her slightly-broken Spanish.
“Not just an employee,” Xanic von Bertrab replied. “A Secretary. Well, a former Secretary. Ernesto Zedillo, he ran the Budget Secretariat for two years under los hermanos Salinas.”
Julia’s eyes widened. “That certainly helps this,” she noted. “If it came from a small employee of the government, that would be less trusting. But from a former Secretary, that will mean a lot more.”
“But there is still a problem,” Sam sighed in his considerably more disjointed Spanish. “The banking records you have produced to us here, they are only saying one half of the story. You prove that these bank accounts have been contributing donations to the PRI, yes, and that these accounts are probably being puppeteered by the narcos. But it is not certain completely. Before publishing, we would have to prove this almost until no doubt.”
Xanic clenched her jaw and looked over at Lydia, who simply stared.
“Second,” Sam continued, “you do a good job to document that these governors are corrupt in favor of the narcos. And you show that these governors were all appointed by Bartlett after the money transfers were happening. But this does not say that the one thing has caused the other. What is it? Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.” That confused Xanic a little bit (she had never taken a Latin class). “Even if Julia and me give these findings to our editors, I have no guarantee that it will be printed.”
If she had been paying attention to her husband’s objections from the beginning, Julia probably would have agreed with him. But she hadn’t been. Her mind had been elsewhere—in the dense, sprawling Mexico City suburb of Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, whose air was continually poisoned by the garbage-filled sea of sewage which had colonized the adjacent lake bed. While Sam explained the problems with Xanic’s and Lydia’s scoop, Julia had been walking with Alejandra Pérez, an eighteen-year-old native of Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl who saw no point in using civic organization to improve her city’s atmosphere because under the PRI system, “no one in power would pay any attention to us”. As Sam outlined his objections, Julia had been wandering the small mountain town of Santa Catarina Juquila, whose people had been saving up what little money they had for over fifteen years, in hopes of bribing the local PRI bureaucracy into building them the hospital they so desperately needed. [2] And just as Sam was wrapping up his second point, Julia had been interviewing Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, a mother-turned-activist whose only son had disappeared into a prison camp in 1975, and who was still searching for him almost twenty years later despite never having received the slightest shred of answer from any PRI administration.
When Julia finally roused herself back to the present moment, Sam was finishing up his spiel. “I know this findings are of great importance, but there is a large danger associa—”
“We’ll do it!”
The sudden change in volume made Sam’s heart do a cartwheel.
“I don’t know how, but we’ll do it! We’ll convince them to put this all in print!” Julia affirmed, breathless. “One way or another, we’ll make sure that before the election is happening, everyone in the world is going to know Manuel Bartlett is a corrupt son of a bitch!”
Xanic and Lydia smiled in unison. Sam turned and stared at his wife, stunned. He tried to respond, but was cut off once again.
“I don’t care what you say, Sam, we’re doing this,” Julia informed him in English in the same tone she used when he forgot to bring his dishes to the sink after dinner. “We’re bringing this straight to Max Frankel’s desk and we’ll threatening to resign if he doesn’t print it. I know the scoop has problems, Sam. Every scoop does. But this is way, way too big to start fussing over every little bit of journalistic procedure in the AP handbook. If we want the PRI to lose, we have to break this story. We’re the only ones who can, and if we don’t, then we’ll be leaving an entire nation out to rot!”
Sam didn’t even bother opening his mouth this time. There was no stopping her now. “Every night for the last six years, you’ve nagged me about how much trouble you have getting to sleep. Well, how in the hell do you expect to get a good night’s sleep ever again in your life if you ignored an opportunity to help overthrow a dictator as vicious as Genghis Khan?”
Sam sunk back into his chair. He didn’t even bother nodding, he knew what was going to happen.
Julia turned back to face Lydia and Xanic. She smiled and spoke once more to them in Spanish. “You can depend on us. We will make sure everyone reads your story and knows to see Bartlett and the PRI as just as corrupt as they truly are.”
Xanic beamed. Lydia beamed even wider and removed the arrows from her eyes, giving Julia the rare honor of being embraced, rather than pierced, by a Cacho stare. Both journalists were overcome by a feeling which washed over them and warmed them right down to the bone: catharsis. A sudden, soothing sense that their untiring efforts over the preceding months—the emotional and physical hunger they’d endured, the countless late nights that far too often bled into early mornings, the endless hours spent scrounging for evidence and chasing tantalizing trails of evidence into pitiful dead ends—had been worth it. That their shared passion for plucking needles of truth from haystacks of deception had at long last paid off. That finally, finally, someone with just the right connections was going to fast-track their mammoth of a scoop to the absolute apogee of global journalism for the entire world to see.
If only, Xanic and Lydia fretted as one mind, that feeling were strong enough to assure them that it would be enough to swing the election.
__________
[1] It’s at this point that I’d like to say a massive thank you to Julia Preston and Sam Dillon. Their book Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy was what got me into Mexico in the first place, and out of every source I’ve used to research this project, it is far and away the one I’ve referenced the most. The book has also given me in-depth character studies of relatively obscure, but extremely unique and talented individuals whose stories I’ve put to good use in this timeline. Hopefully this little tribute here makes up a little bit for the immense service Preston and Dillon have rendered to me and to the English-speaking world by chronicling Mexico’s transition to democracy in an engaging and in-depth way.
[2] A word about that: in OTL, Santa Catarina Juquila did eventually get its hospital, a twelve-bed clinic which cost $2 million and took seven years to build. It opened on September 27, 1999, and then-President Ernesto Zedillo himself was there to cut the ribbon. Three days later, an earthquake hit, the hospital’s flimsily-constructed walls split right down the middle, injuring ten patients (over $1.7 million of the budget had been siphoned off by corrupt officials), and the building had to be condemned. It’s a pretty illustrative, if very depressing, anecdote about how impoverished Mexicans were hurt by endemic corruption.
