1996-09-26 Local Press - Mare Murders in Baja California
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Mare Murders in Baja California
On September 20, Jorge Garcia Vargas, a high level official from the National Institute for Combating Drugs (INCD) in Tijuana was found murdered along with his three bodyguards. The four were found strangled with signs of torture in an INCD truck. Two days before he was murdered, Garcia Vargas told La Jornada, "We are investigating thirty businesses and shops in Tijuana, all under suspicion of laundering drug money... the arrest warrant against one of them is about to be issued." This is the second murder of a federal police chief in Baja California in a period of one week. On September 13, another federal police officer, Ernesto Ibarra Santes was murdered. He had only been in the position since August 17, when he replaced one of the officers removed during the purge of corrupt officials by Attorney General Antonio Lozano. According to the director of the Bi-National Center for Human Rights, Victor Clark Alfaro, before he was killed Ibarra told him that he had discovered links between drug traffickers and local politicians and business people, including PAN Senator Ricardo Gonzalez Cruz. Gonzalez Cruz is apparently now under investigation, and has denied any ties to drug traffickers. (La Jornada, 22 September)
Cordoba: Invite Me to Testify
Former Salinas top advisor Jose Cordoba Montoya sent a letter to the Congressional Commission in charge of following up the Colosio assassination case, asking that he be called to testify. Cordoba sent a similar letter to Attorney General Antonio Lozano in March, after politicians and press reports continued to insist that he and Salinas should be called to share what they know about the case. "Don't you think that such a meeting would help to clarify some doubts the Commission might have?" asked Cordoba. Millions of Mexicans are asking the same question: why haven't these men been called to testify? (Reforma, 20 September)