Thread: Former Mexico presidential candidate missing

Former Mexico presidential candidate missing

From The Associated Press
May 15, 2010 | 2:38 p.m.

A former Mexican presidential candidate who has remained a power broker in the ruling party was missing amid signs of violence, the federal Attorney General's Office said Saturday.

Prosecutors said that the car of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos was found near his ranch in the central state of Queretaro. It said some of his belongings were found inside the car as well as unspecified "signs of violence."

The Mexican newspaper El Universal reported that federal sources said Fernandez de Cevallos had been kidnapped, but a federal prosecutor' spokeswoman said she could not confirm that.

Queretaro state Attorney General Arsenio Duran told the radio station Formato 21 that investigators found blood stains inside the car and a pair of eyeglasses, a pen and a pair of scissors that relatives said Fernandez de Cevallos often carried with him.

Duran said a night watchman told police Fernandez de Cevallos was supposed to arrive to his ranch in the town of Pedro Escobedo on Friday night but that he never made it.

Relatives who had planned to have breakfast with him Saturday morning reported him missing, Duran said. Relatives told authorities they have not been contacted by anyone about the disappearance of the 69-year-old.

Fernandez de Cevallos was the 1994 presidential candidate of the National Action Party that now governs Mexico and he has continued to be an influential figure, as well as one of Mexico's most successful attorneys.

The bearded, cigar-chomping candidate jumped out of obscurity during Mexico's first televised debate by presidential candidates in 1994, striking a chord with the middle class with his calls to topple a party that had held power since 1929.

He finished second to Ernesto Zedillo that year, but his party finally won the presidency six years later when Vicente Fox was elected.

Fernandez de Cevallos served as a senator and congressman while also winning some of the country's largest court judgments, often in suits against government agencies.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 7146.story

The drug cartels may have kidnapped him in order to get Calderon to give up the drug war.

I always hear talk of Mexico's five ruling families but I can find all kinds of stuff about Mafia and US government secrets on internet but nada zip about the 5 families. They must be really horrible that the Mexican people don't rise up against them and what they have done to their country. They prefer to keep them as slaves and brainwash them that it is the US and white people's fault?

Originally Posted by sarum

I always hear talk of Mexico's five ruling families but I can find all kinds of stuff about Mafia and US government secrets on internet but nada zip about the 5 families. They must be really horrible that the Mexican people don't rise up against them and what they have done to their country. They prefer to keep them as slaves and brainwash them that it is the US and white people's fault?

Power to the plutocrats

The popular press commonly writes of the 300 ruling families of Mexico, or of the 70 men that run the economy.
www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/politics/pluto.html

This puts a wrench into Calderon speech this Thrusday, when he will address the U.S. Congress. The turd will slam Arizona, but Arizona will have the truth on their side, since kidnappings is why Arizona enacted their law.

Diego Fernandez de Ceballos was no ordinary Senator or former candidate.
I know about Mexican politics. Fernandez de Ceballos was a big wig for the PAN party, Calderon's party. This guy is what Hillary Clinton is to the Dems or Mitt Romney is to the Republicans.

2 days ago a candiate for Congress, from the same party (PAN) was assasinated. You think this is a message for Calderon? I sure do.

Updated May 17, 2010

Mexican rebel groups distances itself from disappearance of ex-candidate

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Authorities said Monday there is no evidence any armed group is behind the disappearance of a former presidential candidate, and Mexico' most active guerrilla group said it does not know what happened to him.

Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, a leading figure in President Felipe Calderon's governing party, was reported missing over the weekend after his abandoned vehicle was found near his ranch with traces of blood found on a pair of scissors.

Since then, authorities say no one has contacted them or the politician's family. Suspicion has focused on the possibility it was a kidnapping for ransom, an attack by drug cartels or an assault by political or personal rivals.

In a statement posted Monday on a website that has historically carried its communiques, the leftist People's Revolutionary Army, or EPR, said it shared the pain of Fernandez de Cevallos' family because its own activists have been kidnapped.

"We do not know if his disappearance is for political motives, his inter-party disputes, or because of the social breakdown of this neoliberal government," the EPR statement read. "The disappearance ... is regrettable, whatever its reason or motive, it is a painful event for the family, a pain we are familiar with."

The statement did not explicitly say the rebels played no role in his disappearance.

Mexico's leftist rebel groups claimed responsibility for kidnapping business and political figures in the 1990s. The EPR is best known for the 2007 bombings of oil pipelines, attacks that the group said were aimed at making the government hand over two rebels who had disappeared.

In a statement read to local media by one of Fernandez de Cevallos's associates, his family appeared to follow the interpretation that he may have been kidnapped for ransom.

"The family calls on those people who are holding Diego Fernandez de Cevallos to communicate with them, in order to negotiate his release," according to the statement read by lawyer and former attorney general Antonio Lozano Gracia.

In a statement Monday, the Attorney General's Office said no one had contacted the family or authorities, adding there were no indications an armed group was behind his disappearance.

Fernandez de Cevallos, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1994 on the ticket of Calderon's conservative National Action Party, disappeared at his ranch in the central state of Queretaro.

The bearded, cigar-chomping politician known as "El Jefe Diego" — "Diego the Boss" — is an elder statesman for National Action.

He also is known for his brash, confrontational statements as he brushed off accusations of using his political ties to advance his practice as an attorney for some of Mexico's richest businesses. He represented companies that often won lucrative lawsuits against the government event as he served in Congress.

The disappearance comes amid a wave of drug violence that has killed more than 22,700 people since Calderon launched a crackdown against organized crime in December 2006. Drug traffickers are increasingly attacking political and government leaders in retaliation.

Last week, gunmen burst into the farm supplies business of mayoral candidate Jose Guajardo Varela and killed him and his son, after he ignored warnings to drop out of the race in Valle Hermoso, 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Brownsville, Texas.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/17 ... -+World%29