Guerrero: Aguirre goes after Torreblanca

Guerrero Governor Ángel Aguirre requested the intervention of the federal audit, or the Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF) to investigate the whereabouts of more than seven billion pesos meant for the state education ministry, but mysteriously missing.


Right now, Pricewaterhouse Coopers is undertaking an audit of the administration of Zeferino Torreblanca (2005-2011), and education secretary Silvia Romero Suáre suggested that much more is yet to come.


We'll see.


Earlier this year, El Universal published several damning indictment of Torreblanca's administration (here and here). His supporters claimed improved public infrastructure, given more than 6,000 public works commissioned by the administration, yet he left behind a state overrun by organized crime - in violence, Guerrero is only surpassed by Chihuahua and Durango (45/100,000) - and with severe setbacks in health and education Particularly damning is an increase in mortality rates. A third of Guerrero's inhabitants live in extreme poverty, and illiteracy is rife. Zeferino also proved inept in resolving political crimes such as the much-publicized murder of Armando Chavarría, president of the state congress, in 2009. He broke completely with the party that postulated him, PRD, which he never joined. The PRD was able to elect Aguirre in spite of, and not because of, Zeferino's lackluster administration.


Yet he had his supporters - among them President Felipe Calderón, who defended Torreblanca, yet appeared incapable of taking note of any particular achievement.


Zeferino´s own pathetic defense? If the state of Guerrero is a disaster, it´s because the entire country is a disaster. A more damning admission, impossible.

Deep cover-up in Guerrero: Murdered Armando Chavarría's file disappears

A new and drastic turn in the investigation of murdered PRD politician Armando Chavarría, who was head of Guerrero's state congress, and likely would have been governor now had unknown assassins not executed him in his car, right in front of his house.

Now, Alberto López Rosas, who is head of the Guerrero prosecutor's office, informed that the expediente or file that contained the details of the investigation into Chavarría's murder, has simply disappeared. 

It should be recalled that less than a month ago,  now ex-governor Zeferino Torreblanca claimed the case to be "99 percent solved." 

What is Torreblanca, who clearly seems to be the ultimate responsible for the disappearance of the papers, hiding?

Guerrero: The wife did it, or persecution of Armando Chavarría's widow?

I've written before about the murder of PRD legislator Armando Chavarría in Guerrero last year.
Now, another turn of events: The state prosecutor's office have ordered an investigation of the assets of Chavarría's widow, Martha Obeso Cázares, specifically properties in her name. One of the lines of investigation of Chavarría's  murder is, to be sure, that his wife did it, though so far no evidence has surfaced in public. Obeso Cázares claims it is a pure persecution by the attorney general's office and Governor Zeferino Torreblanca, with the aim to intimidate her and to divert the investigation of the real killers.
Did Chavarría's widow really do it? Or is this just the revenge of Torreblanca for all her critiques of him, his administration, and the investigation of her husband's murder?

Guerrero 2005-2010: 46 members of the PRD murdered under Zeferino Torreblanca

As the government of  Zeferino Torreblanca nears its end in Acapulco, La Jornada's correspondent in Guerrero state sums up the total death toll of perredistas, or members of the leftwing  Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), murdered during his government: 46. The most prominent fatality is clearly Armando Chavarría Barrera, assassinated in August 2009, who was a very likely gubernatorial candidate to succeed Zeferino (For more on Chavarría's murder, see this post). Yet the range of murdered activists include everything from former mayors to prominent peasant and social leaders, to groups of voters - for the 2009 federal elections, in the municipality of Coahuayutla, close to Michoacán and in the Costa Grande, 12 indigenous purépecha identified with the PRD  were gunned down on their way to vote. 


The tragic irony is of course that Guerrero's governor Torreblanca was until recently identified as a PRD governor. While he recently loudly denounced the party for the simple reason that the PRD, moreover well aware of Torreblanca's unpopularity within the party and with voters as a whole,  refused to allow him to impose his own candidate to succeed him. 


It would not be prudent to signal Torreblanca as the architect behind the PRD murders - I personally do not believe he had anything to do with any of them, and for sure no evidence has surfaced to indicate this. Yet the ineptitude of Torreblanca's police and prosecutorial appointments have been appalling, as the murders continued unabated and unresolved (including Chavarría's), while the governor seemed more busy with sending police forces to repress street demonstrations by social forces protesting his government's ineptitude and general indifference to the plight of social activists, constantly harassed and frequently murdered, in the state of Guerrero. 

PRD-PT-Convergencia agrees to common candidate in Guerrero.

The three left-leaning parties in Mexico, PRD, PT and Convergencia agreed on a common candidate for governor of Guerrero. This is important: The division among the left in Guerrero in last year's federal election was partly responsible  for the PRD's loss of 8 out of 9 majority districts, and the year before its loss of the all-important mayorship of Acapulco, which PRI  candidate Manuel Añorve Baños retook.

(on a side note, Añorve Baños' recently declared candidacy to be governor of Guerrero illustrates a practice I find absolutely abhorrent: That politicians, regardless of what party they belong to, merely serve a year or so [1.5. in the case of Añorve Baños] in the office in which they were elected, and then immediately use it as a trampoline for a higher office, in this case the governorship. I hope the Acapulco voters that were ditched by Añorve Baños will take note of this). 


"Pre-candidates" of the PRD are local deputy Armando Ríos Piter, a Zeferino-type perredista (like the governor, he refuses to become a PRD member), and Federal Senator David Jiménez Rumbo, who was very close to the murdered favorite gubernatorial candidate Armando Chavarría. One dark-horse candidate to keep an eye out for is former federal deputy Cuauhtemoc Sandoval Ramirez, which I find a much better pick than the other two. 


However, my hunch is that the eventual nomination will go to Luis Walton Aburto, current national president of Convergencia , a nominally left-leaning yet ultra-opportunistic party (it went with PAN in 2005 in the State of Mexico, yet jumped on the AMLO bandwagon in order to obtain enough votes to keep its national party registry), after Luis Maldonado stepped down this January.  (Both, to note, were lifelong members of PRI until ditching it to set up their current outfit, adding more anecdotal evidence  to the argument that most Mexican politicians carry a priísta within them). 

Guerrero, and "Un asesinato político" (2010).

Guerrero's been a bit in the news lately regarding the heating-up of the battle to replace Goveronor Zeferino Torreblanca. A few days ago, the first official PAN-PRD coalition of 2011 was announced, and to the surprise of few, Guerrero was the first to be clinched. I had a conversation a few weeks ago with José Espina, head of PAN's National Elections Commission, where he anticipated this decision as a done deal, together with other states. The states where he did not foresee any coalitions were Michoacán and Baja California Sur. When I asked him why, the obvious answer was, they're already governed by PRD governments. Yet so is Guerrero. Espina responded to this, basically, "yes, but the governor in Guerrero is very close to  our positions." I use this a segway to some quick comments on a book I just finished,  Tomás Tenorio Galindo's  Un asesinato político. 


Without excusing the at times paranoid-conspiratorial attitude of Mexican political commentators (Ricardo Alemán in El Universal pops to mind!), Mexico certainly has had its share of political assassinations that more than hint at the involvement of the powers-that-be, and which moreover have largely remained unsolved. 


Nearly a year ago, on Aug. 20, 2009, a notable assassination of a noted politician  - a "political assassination" to many, to be sure - took place in the state of Guerrero. Armando Chavarría, a former national legislator for the PRD, and then president of the Guerrero Congress as a local deputy, was assassinated outside his home. Chavarría was also the very likely PRD nominee to replace Zeferino as governor.

The brutal murder was condemned at the national level, including by President Calderón, and PRD President Jesús Ortega, with many other perredistas, condemned it as a political assassination. And this is indeed the main point of Tenorio Galindo's new book: Chavarría's murder was political in nature, and it had something - something - to do with Governor Torreblanca. Sounds vague?

In the introduction to the book, written by noted journalist Miguel Ángel Granados Chapa, we learn that the book "leads unequivocally to a disturbing conclusion: the government of Torreblanca was not unconnected to Chavarría's execution." Pretty strong stuff. 


The book sports a dramatic cover, where PRD leaders stand around a coffin draped with PRD's colors. For me it was not necessary: Being highly interested in learning more about the murder and as well more about local politics in Guerrero, I picked up the book.


A bit of background: 
Zeferino, while elected as PRD's nominee, is only affiliated with the party, and not even a member. He has been accused of being more of a panista than a perredista (he was the first PRD governor to recognize Calderón), in particular toward what his critics regard as outright repression of social movements in Guerrero. The book adds plenty of ammo to these critics. It notes, for one, that more than 30 perredistas have been murdered in Guerrero on his watch, and offers plenty of examples of his insensitivity toward his critics.
While I feel one cannot take all of these at face value - the author makes no efforts at all presenting other readings of these incidents - clearly there appears to be plenty of room for criticism of Torreblanca. Some key points are for instance his apparently incompetent/corrupt/brutal/etc attorney general, also criticized by the CNDH; repression of demonstrators; the lack of any efficient government action to clear up the kidnap and murder of indigenous activists;  riding roughshod over the State Congress, and so forth. 


Now what about the murder? 
Well, there are some tantilizing facts. The author argues that the governor ordered Chavarría's bodyguards to be taken away when he became a local deputy - he was previously a member of the state government - despite Chavarría's pleas for protection.
Crystal clear, as well, is the intense animosity between the governor and Chavarría. 
However, did the governor want Chavarría dead? Or rather, did he order him to be killed?

A very brief summary of the book and its evidence, inspired by Sergio Leone:


The Good: The book does offer quite  bit of information on Guerrero politics, and particularly on the fights Chavarría-Torreblanca. 


The Bad: The book is highly repetitive in these depictions.  I am also very critical of its use of sources: There are tons of very strong claims that are not backed up by any sources except tons of references to El Sur, a Guerrero newspaper where the writer works, but no page numbers, no headlines, nothing to go by in order to verify the book's many claims. There is much, and I mean much, innuendo here, with very little or no backing up. 
One claim the author repeats ad nauseam is that Zeferino came to power thanks to PRD - it is NOT that the PRD came to power thanks to Zeferino. Notwithstanding the argument that there is very little PRD presence in his government, which I think is fair, where is the evidence that the PRD could basically have put any candidate in 2005 and it would have won?  There is absolutely nothing to back this up; we are merely to take his word. 


Moving on: the author seems to be at pains to describe Chavarría as a man true to his leftwing convictions, while Zeferino has not an iota of perredismo within him. Many have criticized Zeferino for the same, to be sure. But let's be honest: Chavarría appears to be as well as a a man every bit as apt to wheel and to dirty deals, to engage in opportunism, destroy his enemies, etc, as Torreblanca. And then there is the case of the "60 women." Milenio published a report that the investigators of the crime had interviewed 60 Chavarría apparently had amorous relations with, 9 of them until his death, . That hardly warrants his murder, but it does suggest he was hardly a paragon of morality. Yes, this may be a leak to discredit a dead man and to derail an investigation, but the author merely dismisses it as irrelevant, without truly denying it. This is not trivial stuff. 


Also, the book may as well be seen as an attack on Jesús Ortega and his faction of the PRD, given that Torreblanca sided with Ortega in the 2008 internal election for PRD president. Yet it was not Ortega who pushed Torreblanca as candidate in 2005; rather, it was both AMLO and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas. A minor point, yes, but a fact that does not fit so well with the author's story.


The Ugly: Main claim: Chavarría's murder was a political murder. And somehow, in some way, the Governor had something to do with it. Yet there is absolutely no evidence! This seems to me to be the main reason the author cannot make himself state clearly "Zeferino killed Chavarría," but rather resorts to endless suggestions, circumspect formulations, etc. This claim seem to rest principally on the fact that the governor himself might have withdrawn his bodyguards. Yet even this point seems to be contested. 




Coincidentally, I noted that today Milenio  has its own review of the book, arguing that it "leaves no room for doubts regarding the actions and those presumed responsible for them." 


After having read the book, I couldn't disagree more.