An Invitation from John Sontrop in Ottawa

Saludos a todos/Greetings everyone:

First, I hope this finds all of you in good health and getting used to living through this Covid pandemic. Of course, like many people, I have found that I have even more time on my hands now. It's been a while since I last was in touch with some of you.  Some of the old (yes, we are all getting older!!) Ottawa CIASPers have been getting together on occasion and keeping in contact with each other.   

Since it will be 50 years next fall since the last CIASP group went to Mexico (Summer 1971), one of the things I have been working on is researching the old national CIASP files which Kevin Morris provided to me last fall (- he had been keeping them in his "archives" since 1972!!  A bit musty but nevertheless in good shape.).  I found that it makes for some interesting if not nostalgic reading, given the many fond memories I have of those times.  I thought you might be interested in these as well so I decided to scan the paper documents to electronic format and uploading them onto my Dropbox (see attached link below).  I've provided the link below so that you can access them and make comments or observations if you wish.  I've also uploaded a few photos I have managed to collect over the years( - not having a camera during the three summers I spent in Mexico is definitely a regret I'll always have.  So much for trying not to look like a tourist during theses times!) 

If you are not familiar with Dropbox, there are different ways of viewing the files (- to the right of "Members" column, click on the drop down arrow to the right of the icon with the three bars. There are three choices - small, large or list). To make or view comments you will need to view the files and/or photos in the "list" viewing format.  For each file or photo click on the icon with the three dots to the right of the screen. From the drop down screen choose "Add Comment".  I have already provided various comments on some of the documents and photos.  In order to see the entire comment on the more lengthy ones you need to click on the comments section.  Mind you, you can always send me your comments, corrections or photos and I will add them to the appropriate files and photos in the Dropbox.

You are the only ones for whom I have what I assume is an up-to-date e-mail.  If you know of other CIASPers who may be interested in this and have an up-to-date email for them please let me know and I will send them a link to my Dropbox.  

If you have any issues with Dropbox and accessing the files, please let me know and I'll try to resolve them.

Un abrazo a todos mis amigos!

John  (Juandote)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/toa3h8iv5p922r8/AAApFMJGx_SxHkeKjbxkeJiHa?dl=0

Hijo de la Guerra

Hijo de la guerra by Ricardo Raphael
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The book is in Spanish.
Writing about narco Mexico presents many challenges— but the most important is the difficulty of “establishing the truth” and “fixing details” to many incidents and events that by definition are “unknowable”.
Ricardo Raphael sets about to tell us the true story in a novel that presents true facts that are unravelled by means of fiction and creative imagination. The result is a wonderful and factual overview of narco Mexico— specifically the narco Mexico relating to the rise of Los Zetas within the Gulf Cartel. Among the several cartels in Mexico, the Gulf cartel came late into the game and rose to prominence when the DEA and American Drug wars pushed the Colombian cartels from the Caribbean and into Eastern Mexico. In the late 1990’s, routes through Mexico opened up as Mexico became a trampoline for exporting opium into the United States.
Internal fractions within the burgeoning Gulf Cartel led the Cárdenas Guillén brothers to recruit highly trained Mexican army deserters as their “bodyguards” and henchmen. Twenty Mexican military officers who trained in extreme military aggression at Fort Hood Texas were recruited by Osiel Cárdenas Guillen. All were originally assigned to a specialized Mexican military unit known as GAFE. (essentially, an equivalent to Green Beret special forces).
Those basic facts are true and are described accurately in this book— that is, army deserters were hired as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel. And the brutality of Los Zetas and their bloody role in establishing new routes is also true and described within this novel.
The author Ricardo Raphael reviews those actual events by making them part of a story within a story. The overall narrative of the book is built around the discoveries made by a journalist who makes weekly visits to a prisoner who has claimed to be one of the original deserters. That prisoner claims to be Galdino Mellado Cruz aka Zeta 9— who was reportedly killed in a military takedown. The journalists's visits to this self-proclaimed Galdino provide him with apparently compelling evidence that the prisoner is truly an original Zeta. The weekly visits details about the formation of los Zetas, their training in extreme survival and terror practices, and about many of the major criminal events that were described and reported in the Mexican press.
But, inconsistencies in Galdino’s biography raise doubts in the journalists mind about whether Galindo is a serial liar or is actually a high level narco.
In the end, the journalist and the reader are left with a horrific understanding about the impact narco-violence and narco-culture, but at the same left with questions about how such things came to be.
It really is a terrific read that will hopefully be translated into English.


View all my reviews

The Cartel. Don Winslow. A review

The Cartel 

by Don Winslow

average reading from Goodreads.com

4.36 of 5 stars 4.36  ·   rating details   ·  1,080 ratings  ·  171 reviews

From the acclaimed author of The Power of the Dog—and continuing the gripping, harrowing story of the Mexican-American drug wars that fueled it—an electrifying new novel that spans a deadly decade and brings this tale of greed and corruption, revenge and justice, heroism and deceit into the present moment.
It's 2004. El Federación, the most powerful drug organization in the world, has been exploded and the Mexican drug trade has settled out into several cartels that exist in a state of tenuous accord. The patron of El Federación, Adán Barrera, is in solitary in a San Diego prison. Art Keller, the DEA agent who put him there—and killed his two brothers—is living at a New Mexican monastery, tending bees, the solitude and simple truths of the place a powerful antedote to his former "life of lies." But when Barrera negotiates a deal that lets him serve out his time in a Mexican prison, a series of events is set off that undermines whatever accord existed between the cartels, and a war of unprecedented scale and viciousness erupts. And with Berrera back in the world that he once owned and will do whatever he can to own again, Keller plunges back in the game, playing, as he always did, by his own rules. What ensues is an all-out war with players—honest and corrupt, victim and perp—on every level of society on both sides of the border. But it is also Keller's personal war on drugs, his own addiction, and the question that hovers above every move he makes: is he looking for justice or for revenge? (less)

Kindle Edition, 640 pages

Published June 23rd 2015 by Knopf (first published May 22nd 2015)

original title

The Cartel

ASIN

B00PP3DNCE

edition language

English

A good read. Worth the time.
Most (about 70%) of this novel draws on true facts and real events - those countless horrific reports from the ongoing bloodbath of the narco-war in Mexico. It IS a novel, and Winslow applies literary licence to shift events in time and place, and to create amalgam characters based on the biography of real ones. (e.g. Don Buho the editor in Juarez is based on Jesus Blancornelas who founded Zeta Seminario in Tijuana) He also invents characters and incidents that allow him to push the novel more toward the "sensationalist" and "unbelievability" zones- notably his heroic (anti-hero?) DEA agent Arthur Keller (the protagonist in the earlier novel The Power of the Dog) and he describes exaggerated vision of the paramilitary power and extent of plazas controlled of a real cartel of former soldiers known as Los Zetas. Another overly exaggerated character is Eddie Ruiz - based on the totally unbelievable and exaggerated life of an American nicknamed La Barbie. It seems (to these Canadian eyes) that Winslow cannot but help portray Americans more heroic, intelligent and brave than they really deserve. 
The plot is driven by a long-standing blood feud between the heroic (but flawed) DEA agent Art Keller and the imaginary drug lord is who is the amalgam of two real life capos (Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Ramon Arellano Felix). Of course, El Chapo is more well-known than Arellano Felix and many people have simply reduced Winslow's character to the Chapo part.
The emergence of a powerful paramilitary presence in Mexico (Los Zetas) drives the plot line and requires the re-emergence of a heroic agent to save the US failing battles against the dominant cartel (headed by the amalgam capo Adan Herrera) and a rising insurgent paramilitary power in the north east of Mexico (and eventually Juarez and Chihuahua). Of course, Keller presents all of this from the point of view of a mission impossible anti-hero who becomes involved in creating and manipulating intrigues only because he is willing to bend rules and engage in shady (torture,execution) behaviour.
In the overall scheme of things in the real world, the drug war in Mexico has gone relatively unnoticed and has never received the same international attention as other incidents that have resulted in much less bloodshed. In fact, there have been more victims of violence and death in Mexico than in the current Syrian and ISIS conflict.
Because of this relative obscurity, many readers might come to believe that most of the events in this book were "created and invented" by the author. They would be wrong - most of the events that Winslow described really happened. In fact, Winslow's mastery of those facts is quite impressive and it is clear that he has done a great deal of research and is familiar with the reality of drugs and the failed drug war in Mexico. There was a family of bakers who were harassed and driven out of Mexico, there was a casino that was set on fire, there were migrants captured and tortured, there was a person who specialized in dissolving bodies, there were and are child killers (sicarios), there is government complicity, there are police forces working for various factions, there are connections to the 'ndrangheta, there were more than 80,000 direct casualties (it's much higher), and there are gruesome executions and beheadings, and there are brutally explicit web sites used for propaganda and creating fear, and there were feuds and battles between allies that had violent endings (e.g. the Execution of El Barbas in Cuernavaca). The majority of facts in the book are true or based on true events.
In spite of the true facts that are the basis of the book, I am also fearful that this "fictional account" will create new misconceptions and create new fallacies about several aspects of the ongoing drug war. The book is based on facts, but it IS NOT true and simply wrong in many important respects. Here are a few "facts" that should NOT be taken away by the reader.
The DEA and Homeland are anything but heroic. The role of Art Keller represents over heated heroic nonsense. The DEA (and Homeland) are monitoring Mexico through EPIC and other border agencies, but the fact is that the war on drugs does not have James Bond/Tom Cruise super-heroes who are all knowing and capable of the levels of manipulation and intelligence of this imaginary hero.
The portrayal of Adan Herrera is drawn from some terrific Spanish language sources (especially Anabel Hernandez), but he is also romanticized and his biographical portrait in this book is really muddled by including biographical background of El Chapo Guzman's "competitor" from the Arellano Felix family and the Tijuana Cartel. Also, the real power behind the Sinaloa cartel (El Mayo Zambada) is not included in this novel, even though it appears to me that Don Winslow has also borrowed some of the "qualities" of Ismael Zambada (El Mayo) and attached them to Adan and his new father-in-law Nacho.
The power of los Zetas (the paramilitary force) is real, but it is also incredibly exaggerated and enhanced for dramatic licence. Once again, there are several "real events" (including descriptions of encounters provided in Spanish language reports by Ricardo Ravelo). But Winslow does far beyond the reality in describing their territorial influence and reach. Those exaggerated powers are important for Winslow because of the ending he had in mind for the ending - and he needed the dramatic licence of making los Zetas more powerful in order for this to happen. In the real world, Los Zetas had peaked and began to lose their real power and influence when Z-3 (Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano) was killed. The leaders after Z-3 were brutal thugs, but not wise enough or clever enough to do all of the things that Winslow has them do.
And neither are all of the men and women who profit from the drug trade obvious or evil psychopaths, sociopaths or malicious immoral murderers. Many (most?) who profit from the drug war "walk among us as moral" and appear to be no different than you or I. Winslow hints at this, but his overwhelming emphasis is on the psychopathy of drug dealers (e.g. Crazy Eddy, Z-1, Z-40) and this outweighs the more "subtle themes" that are described in passing..

Winslow also introduces "lines of thought" and ideas that are not well documented, but are undoubtedly truthful. For instance, towards the end of the book he introduces the idea that Los Zetas (and the CDG) have an interest in the gas and oil fields south of Big Bend. The things he writes are undoubtedly true (Diego Enrique Osorno writes about this) and such things have complicated the parameters of the "war on drugs". But, Winslow introduces these ideas in passing - just as he stays away from any plot complications (and truthful events) that would be caused by considering the national politics of Mexico. Such things are mentioned only in passing and not in ways that would take away from the focus on "a heroic character" fighting the good battle against evil people.

Sometimes the truth and reality are too painful and we shut down the details to protect ourselves from seeing the awful consequences. Fiction can tell the same story and leave us with a general picture of the "facts" that is more palatable and yet leave us with a general sense that we understand the truth. One earlier novel (Arturo Perez-Revete's the Queen of the South) raised international awareness about Mexico even though it incorporated even fewer "true incidents" than does Winslow's book. 
It has already received a lot of attention, and Winslow's book will do a lot to raise the awareness of the violence in Mexico, but I sincerely hope that it does not leave the impression that it has told all of the truth and provided a true picture of what went on and what is going on in Mexico as a result of America's misplaced war on drugs. I am happy to see that Winslow has been speaking out publicly (CNN) about the war on drugs and has been emphasizing some of the realities of the misplaced war on drugs that has roots back to the ideological views of Harry Ainslinger. Kudos to him for doing so.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1325539015

Mexico's vigilante state: An Al Jazeera English report

Mexico's Vigilante State

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCdqWNn6bsA

Correspondent Teresa Bo takes viewers to the troubled state of Michoacán for an immersive examination of the autodefensa movement.  With tension between the vigilantes and the government increasing this week, a tenuous disarmament deadline looming, and new allegations of cartel affiliations...I think the story will shed some light on how things have been unfolding on the ground.

If you are unable to watch the video at the above link, try accessing it at http://youtu.be/7DyRCFpXumo