Cartel's shadow looms in fall of Mexican general
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20051229-9999-1n29...
By Anna Cearley
December 29, 2005
In his Mexican prison cell, Alfredo Navarro Lara paints colorful jungle and village scenes. They are reminders of the places he served as an Army
general ? before he was linked to the Tijuana region's main drug cartel.
Eight years ago, Navarro was arrested and accused of attempting to enlist the collaboration of a top federal prosecutor so the Arellano F?lix gang
could operate freely.
The Tijuana-based prosecutor turned Navarro in and became a hero for standing up to drug traffickers. Navarro was convicted of encouraging a drug
crime and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He'll get out when he is 72.
The verdict has weathered several legal tests, including the general's decision to challenge an audiotape used to convict him.
Yet he and his family maintain that he was coerced into breaking the law by gangsters who threatened to kill his pregnant daughter.
To the government, he is a traitor.
To others, he is an example of the moral dilemma that entangles many people in Mexico, where the justice system is inefficient and the drug lords
powerful.
Victor Clark, a Tijuana-based human rights activist who follows drug-trafficking trends, said the Arellanos use threats and friendships to influence
police and other officials such as Navarro.
Navarro "could have believed he was threatened, or he could have been a part of this," Clark said. "Both visions have a reality."
Jes?s Blancornelas, who writes about drug-trafficking issues in the Tijuana weekly Zeta, said it's difficult to be a high-ranking law official in the
region without making some concessions to the Arellanos, who continue to control the flow of drugs through the Tijuana region into the United States.
"It's a situation that is almost normal," he said.
Family tradition
Navarro's father and grandfather were both in the military, and as a child, Navarro dreamed of following in their paths, his family recalled. He
attended public school in Tijuana and went to the military academy in Mexico City.
He took his wife, Rosalinda, and two daughters to many of his military postings, even though his job pitted him against leftist guerrillas and drug
traffickers. In a 1980 journal, he wrote about the pride and joy he felt toward his family:
"I would do anything to conserve this home that I have built. I wouldn't want even the corrupt air to penetrate my house, which is for me a sacred
place."
In 1989, Navarro became second-in-command of Tijuana's military base, according to court records from his trial on the drug charge.
During Navarro's time in Tijuana, through 1994, the Arellanos were consolidating their power by demanding money from those who sought to bring drugs
through the border zone, and by killing those who wouldn't pay.
The cartel was making alliances with police to ensure that drugs would reach the United States.
The price was high for those who didn't make concessions.
In 1994, Tijuana's reformist public security chief ? Jos? Federico Ben?tez L?pez ? was gunned down, either in retaliation for targeting drug
traffickers or for turning down a $100,000 bribe from the Arellanos, according to news reports at the time.
Mystery acquaintance
At Navarro's next assignment, in Guadalajara, he got to know the man he would later approach on behalf of the drug cartel, Jos? Luis Ch?vez Garc?a.
Both men served on a military court panel, Navarro's wife said.
In January 1997, Ch?vez, who was also a general, moved to Tijuana to oversee the federal Attorney General's Office in Baja California during a time
when the Mexican government was recruiting military officials to restructure corrupt federal police forces.
The military was perceived as less susceptible to alliances with drug groups.
Navarro remained in Guadalajara with his wife, who frequently visited her family in Tijuana, where she still had a house. The couple's grown daughters
lived in San Diego County, where they worked and went to school.
On Feb. 25, 1997, a Tijuana childhood acquaintance of Navarro's, Efr?n B?ez, showed up in Guadalajara and invited Navarro to a restaurant, according
to court records.
Navarro testified that B?ez said he had been sent by the Arellanos. The cartel wanted Navarro to recruit Ch?vez, according to Navarro's testimony.
At first, Navarro testified, he rebuffed B?ez. A few days later, Navarro and B?ez met again, this time in a parking lot. B?ez passed his cell phone to
Navarro. The man on the other end of the line said he was in front of the Tijuana home that belonged to Navarro's wife, Rosalinda.
The man described the home's color and architecture, as well as Navarro's daughter, who was pregnant. The man said that he and his associates had
guns, and that if Navarro didn't agree to help them immediately, they "would kill two birds in one shot," according to the court records.
Navarro agreed to cooperate.
Was he duped?
Navarro's family members, now living in San Diego County, say they are convinced the threats were real, although they question the source.
Around the time the general was communicating with B?ez, family members including Navarro's pregnant daughter said they saw several armed men inside a
van near Rosalinda's home. So did a neighbor who spoke briefly with the men before they left, according to a deposition that the family said arrived
too late to be accepted by the court.
Police were called, but didn't respond, said the family.
Family members said Navarro did not tell them about the threats until after he was arrested, so they didn't make the connection until later.
The family said they didn't start speaking publicly about such details until they had exhausted their legal options.
They say Navarro, who is an inmate in a Guadalajara prison, now suffers from a wandering mind. But he remains firm in his explanation of what
happened, which is detailed in hard-to-obtain court records from the judicial process in Mexico's interior.
Navarro wrote in response to a letter from a reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune: "I would not have willingly involved myself in a crime like the
one that I am accused of."
A secret recording
Navarro and Ch?vez met March 1 in a suite in Tijuana's Hotel Hacienda del Rio. B?ez and another armed man informed Navarro they would be hiding in an
adjacent room, Navarro testified later.
Ch?vez said in his testimony that a nervous Navarro went through 10 cigarettes during the 45-minute conversation. "He said a person had threatened his
family if he didn't communicate with me," Ch?vez testified.
Navarro told Ch?vez the cartel was willing to pay $1 million a month if Ch?vez cooperated, Ch?vez testified.
"He said it was the most advisable thing to do . . . that these were powerful people who could destroy or protect me, and make me a millionaire,"
Ch?vez said, according to the records.
Part of the proposed deal, Ch?vez testified, was that the Arellanos would set up regular drug busts so Ch?vez would look good to his superiors and the
public.
Ch?vez, who was secretly taping the conversation, declined the offer.
In the court records, Navarro said he had been prepped on what to say, and that he never took any money for his role.
When he flew back to Guadalajara the next day, he was taken into custody, according to court records.
His arrest took place as the United States was considering whether to give more money to Mexico for drug fighting and was demanding proof of Mexico's
commitment to the effort.
A month earlier, the arrest of a military colleague of Navarro's, Jes?s Guti?rrez Rebollo, had created a great stir in Mexico.
Guti?rrez, based out of Guadalajara before being named director of an anti-drug agency, was later convicted of collaborating with the Juarez drug
cartel, which operates mostly south of Texas.
Questions still
Navarro was tried in a civilian court, where charges of bribery and associating with criminals were dismissed, but he was found guilty in 1998 of
encouraging a drug crime.
He admitted to his involvement, but said it came under pressure. The court determined that the threats didn't justify his actions, and an appeals
court ruling in 2001 concluded that Navarro should have reported the threats to his superiors. Navarro said in court testimony that he was afraid to
do that.
David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, said Navarro had a valid concern that his government would be
unable to protect him.
To Shirk, the ambiguity of the situation highlights deeper issues of Mexicans' lack of faith in the country's inefficient police and justice systems,
and the power of drug groups.
"I think that most everyone knows it's wrong to break the law," he said. "What we have to at least recognize is the moral dilemma that many people
find themselves in in Mexico."
Ch?vez, who resisted the cartel and turned in Navarro, managed to avoid retaliation while remaining in his Tijuana post for an additional 21 months.
Blancornelas, the Zeta editor, said that during Ch?vez's tenure, several important Arellano members were arrested. Ch?vez, who works in Mexico's
interior as general director of military justice, declined to comment on the case without authorization from his superiors. Mexico's Department of
Defense rejected the Union-Tribune's request.
Shirk said Ch?vez took a risk in reporting the incident to superiors, considering they could have been allied with the Arellanos.
Ch?vez's ability to act honestly and survive reflect two possibilities, he said. The cynical explanation is that power battles between different drug
groups are waged through law enforcement officials such as Ch?vez and Navarro.
The more optimistic theory, Shirk said, is that in this case the rule of law persevered.
"Most people in Mexico don't trust authorities enough to follow proper procedures," Shirk said. "Here you have an example of a well-functioning
mechanism for someone to pull the fire alarm. If we can figure out how that was done, then we can replicate the model."
Some Mexican law enforcement officials privately said the Arellano cartel continues to use police as messengers to obtain the collaboration of law
enforcement officials. But no messengers have been arrested in recent years.
No more reviews
Many questions remain for Navarro's family, which doubts the Arellanos' involvement and believes he may have been set up by people who had a vendetta
against him.
The B?ez connection could provide insight into the Arellanos' presumed involvement, but B?ez's whereabouts are unknown.
The taped conversation between Navarro and Ch?vez turned out to have "cuts and manipulations of dialogues," according to a government report completed
in 2004. It's unclear why no such study was done on the tape at the time of the arrest.
Navarro's last hope of a final review of the case disappeared this year when a judge rejected it despite questions about the tape.
His family expects that he will have to serve his entire 15-year sentence. In the meantime, he paints: Landscapes so detailed they include ants on
trees and dew on leaf blades.
But his letters are less sanguine, with references to death and to being alone. A recent one quotes extensively from Colombian author Gabriel Garc?a
M?rquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," and Mexican author Octavio Paz's "The Labyrinth of Solitude."
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