Pubdate: Mon, 11 Nov 2002
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2002 El Paso Times
Contact:  http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829
Author: Diana Washington Valdez
Note: Diana Washington Valdez's column on border affairs appears each Monday.

BORDER IS NO MATCH FOR SOME FAMILY TIES

The border does not provide an easy dividing line for those who have 
relatives on both sides. The saying is you can choose your friends but not 
your relatives, but the border presents its own complications.

On Sept. 12, two El Paso FBI agents were seriously injured during a 
law-enforcement operation at Sunland Park-Anapra that targeted suspected 
train robbers.

Juarez politicians, activists and others made a big stink over allegations 
that FBI agents either stepped onto Mexican soil to arrest suspects, or 
Juarez city police and Mexican federal customs officers yanked suspects 
from their Anapra homes and turned them over to U.S. federal agents.

One of the injured FBI agents is related to Francisco "Pancho" Barrio, the 
first Chihuahua state governor from the National Action Party. He now 
serves as President Vicente Fox's anticorruption czar. Fox and the Juarez 
mayor also belong to PAN.

Border Relations

A couple of years ago, a Mexican federal document made its way to El Paso's 
federal court during an extradition case. Among other things, it said a 
former jeweler and accountant of the Carrillo Fuentes cartel had alleged 
that former Gov. Barrio took protection money from Amado Carrillo Fuentes. 
The cooperating witness was assassinated a short time later in Mexico City.

Barrio, through full-page ads in Juarez newspapers, denied the allegations. 
Fox stood by Barrio, and defended his reputation. Local people who know the 
anticorruption czar swear he's incapable of such misdeeds. His defenders 
believe he was extremely naive and didn't know what was going on, which is 
possible.

Still, someone collected all that money in the governor's name.

According to another federal investigation, officials who worked in the 
Barrio administration during the mid-1990s allegedly were involved in the 
disappearances of young women who later turned up dead. Again, Barrio 
didn't know.

A Small Circle

Eduardo Gonzalez Quirarte, an alleged top capo in the Carrillo Fuentes 
cartel, attended El Paso's Jefferson High School. U.S. officials allege 
he's in charge of delivering big payoffs to high-level officials. Although 
U.S. federal agents claim he's a most-wanted fugitive, a former school chum 
of Gonzalez bumped into him last week -- in El Paso.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the new cartel leader, had a daughter here. The 
mother, feeling U.S. federal agents were snooping on them too much, 
recently left their West El Paso home and took off for Mexico.

Francisco "Venado" Estrada, a Chihuahua state fugitive who was arrested 
over the weekend in Durango state, was charged with killing a state 
policeman and escaping from prison. He had been hiding out temporarily with 
cousins in El Paso.

Some border families must have the most interesting dinner conversations.
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