http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16138095

Q&A with 'Drug Lord' author Terrence Poppa: Drug war grew from a corrupt PRI
By Julian Aguilar \ The Texas Tribune
Posted: 09/22/2010 12:00:00 AM MDT

"Tell Poppa they are going to kill him."

That was the message delivered to the editors of the El Paso Herald-Post in the late 1980s by a photographer who snapped pictures of a hotel in Juárez that was being constructed by drug kingpin Gilberto "El Greñas" Ontiveros, a high-ranking member of the Juárez cartel. The pictures got the photographer beaten up and kidnapped, and he was later sent back to deliver the threat to reporter Terrence Poppa, who had written the story about the hotel.

The kidnapping eventually led to "Drug Lord," Poppa's 1990 book chronicling of the rise and fall of drug lord Pablo Acosta, who at the time of his death was one of the most wanted criminals in Mexico. In it, Poppa explains the ins and outs of traffickers' "plaza system": A local leader is selected to be in charge of a territory and buys protection from law enforcement through bribes; any other smuggler must pay the leader for permission to use the routes that run through his territory. Acosta was the leader in Ojinaga, a small outpost that sits across from the town Presidio, west of Big Bend. When he was gunned down in 1987, he was replaced by an up-and-coming drug lord named Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the older brother of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes -- the current head of the Juárez cartel, whose three-year battle with the Sinaloa's Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán has led to the deaths of more than 6,500 people in Juárez.

Just before the release of the third edition of "Drug Lord," Poppa spoke with the Tribune about the book's new epilogue, which details why Mexico continues to struggle with corruption -- and why the U.S. government shares responsibility. U.S. policy, he says, enables the multibillion-dollar drug industry to flourish and guarantees that when a drug kingpin is arrested or gunned down, another will emerge. It also means that whatever gains Mexico has made toward becoming a true democracy will be eroded by this "corrosive" enterprise.

Q Why did you feel the need to update the situation in Mexico 20 years later?

A The Mexico that I wrote about in the book describes the old order of things: Mexico under the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional). In that sense, the book was out of date, because how drug trafficking operated under the PRI is completely different than how it works today in a new Mexico, under the democratically transformed Mexico. So the third edition essentially fast-forwards into the present. The old story provides the context for understanding what's happening today in Mexico because it has a history to it. It just didn't all of a sudden happen. In the old order of things in Mexico, the governmental system was a functioning mafia, and it controlled and regulated drug trafficking for the benefit of people in power. They made huge amounts of profit. It gave a lot of space to organized crime to flourish, because there was so much money in it. That has largely changed, in that the new order of things is a real democratic system. There has been a decoupling of the highest levels of power from drug trafficking now. It's important for people to understand that, so I had to bring the book up to date.

Q One of the strongest arguments that you make is the legalization argument. Some people would say it's too simple to argue that trafficking and violence would miraculously go away. Why do you think that's the best possible solution?

A The profits from drug sales are so immense that they're fueling the growth of organized crime to the point where it can challenge state power in large areas of Mexico and create very chaotic and dangerous situations. Mexico's authentic democratic government is attempting to take away the space that the old order gave to organized crime, but what are its chances of success when organized crime is continually being replenished by these vast amounts of money going from the United States into Mexico? They are arresting top-level capos and putting them in jail or killing them, but there are always people waiting in the wings who are equally ruthless and will pick up where the other people left off because there is so much money involved. It's an endless struggle, and as it continues it's going to erode Mexico's culture; it's going to erode the political conquest of the Mexican people. And it could end up in a very chaotic situation, much more than we see today. There is only one way to stop that, and that is to take the money out of drugs. We saw that with Prohibition in the United States for however many years it lasted.

Q Do you think that some of the Mexican citizens are so tired of the current state of affairs that they might blame the ruling party and go back to PRI rule in the next presidential election?

A The biggest fear, though, is that the PAN (Partido Acción Nacional), the current ruling party, could get corrupted. That would be an awful scenario. The amount of money going into Mexico is corrosive -- who knows what damage it can do over time? As far as the people of Mexico wanting the PRI back, I don't really buy that. It's like in Russia: Who wants the Communists back? You still have a Communist party, but it's just a shadow of what it once was because it doesn't have the ruthless power it used to have. So the venue for returning to an old-order style of things, where the people in power are the controllers of drug trafficking? I don't know which direction it would come from -- maybe the PRD (a third party, Partido de la Revolución Democrática).