Recriminations Over El Chapo's Escape Cast Pall
Over U.S.-Mexico Ties (El Universal, Mexico)
"The
Mexican side found it hard to believe that with the level of espionage and
infiltration that U.S. intelligence manages on the Mexican cartels, that they couldn't
have know El Chapo was planning to escape. The implication is more serious:
that the United States knew and didn't say anything, because after it wanted El
Chapo extradited - Mexico refused. What better way would there be to show the incapacity
of Mexican prisons to keep him (i.e.: in the event he's recaptured, his
extradition to our northern neighbor would hence be almost politically
automatic)."
Suspicion and mistrust
has emerged between the two countries surrounding intelligence cooperation to capture the world's most powerful drug
lord.
Since escaping from the "maximum security" prison
in Altiplano, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman has managed to
strain relations between Mexico and the United States.
Migration, of course, is not being affected, nor is the
billions of dollars in daily bilateral trade. Those are running in the other
direction.
But meetings between officials from both countries have been
marked by a more prickly tone than usual. Hints of suspicion and mistrust and mutual
recriminations have appeared during rounds of talks about which only the
noblest face has been publicly reported: two countries cooperating on the
intelligence to capture the world's most powerful kingpin.
High level sources have confided in me about at least two
clashes between Mexico and the United States.
Who helped one of the world's most notorious and dangerous men, Sinaloa Cartel godfather 'El Chapo' Guzman, escape...
The first would have occurred during the visit to Texas in
the last week of July by Criminal Investigation Agency Director Thomas Zerón De Lucio and Deputy
Regional director of the Attorney General's Office Gilberto Higuera
Bernal, who met with U.S. intelligence agency representatives.
Suspicion hung over the meeting. It has been related to me that
the Mexican side found it hard to
believe that with the level of espionage and infiltration that U.S.
intelligence manages on the Mexican cartels, that they couldn't have know El
Chapo was planning to escape. The implication is more serious: that the United
States knew and didn't say anything, because after it wanted El Chapo
extradited - Mexico refused. What better way would there be to show the incapacity
of Mexican prisons to keep him (i.e.: in the event he's recaptured, his
extradition to our northern neighbor would hence be almost politically
automatic).
The United States, I am told by other sources, rejected these
suspicions and shot back, arguing that high level corruption pervades Mexico
and that the Mexican government had repeatedly assured them that the prison at Altiplano was world class.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
The second encounter is said to have occurred during the
"farewell tour" of U.S. Ambassador in Mexico Anthony Wayne - specifically,
during a visit to the Interior Ministry overseen by Miguel Angel Osorio Chong. This
coincided with the statement by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) official
that it had warned Mexican authorities about El Chapo's escape plans three times.
The United States answered, according to people affluent
aware, that they passed the data to them through other communication channels
of smaller bureaucratic hierarchy, and finished average clarifying publicly
that controversial declaration.
Mexico demanded that he either recant the statement or provide
evidence that such information had been provided, since the Center
for Research and National Security (CISEN), which
is their central contact point, never received it. The United States responded,
according to senior people aware of the exchange that the information had been
passed to other less bureaucratic channels in the hierarchy, and the encounter
ended without a public statement clarifying that controversy.
With these tensions, new
ambassadors for both countries have their work cut out for them.
*Carlos Loret de Mola was born in Merida, Yucatan, in 1976 and holds a B.A.
in Economics from the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM). He is the host of Televisa's morning news program PrimeroNoticias,
which reaches an audience of 35 million people in Mexico, the United States and
Latin America every day, and hosts afternoon radio program Cover from Radio Formula.
He publishes A Reporter's Tales for El Universal three times a week.
