Timeline Mexico 1970-1997
Return to home
1970 Dec 1, In
Mexico Pres. Luis Echeverria succeeded Gustav Diaz Ortaz and continued
to 1976. He began with populist approach and later devalued the peso,
starting a tradition of currency instability and economic crises.
(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-14)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1970 Work began in Cancun to
develop a tourist attraction.
(SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T10)
1970 In Mexico under the rule of
Luis Echeverria the military launched the so-called "Friendship
Operation" in Guerrero. A 2006 report said there was evidence the army
conducted "illegal searches, arbitrary detentions, torture, the raping
of women in the presence of their husbands, and the possible
extrajudicial executions of groups of people."
(AP, 2/27/06)
1970s The government expropriated
thousands of acres of ejido (collective) land nationwide to promote
tourism and other development.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A14)
1971 Mar, Mexican fisherman
Rudesindo Cantarell took geologists of Petroleos Mexicanos to an site
where oil impacted his nets. The Cantarell field turned out to be one
of the largest offshore oil fields ever found. In 2006-2006 production
fell 20% as the reserve declined.
(WSJ, 4/5/07, p.A1)
1971 Jun 10, In Mexico City a
paramilitary group descended on student demonstrators and at least 11
people were killed. In 2002 criminal complaints were filed against 14
former federal and Mexico City officials for their involvement in the
massacre. Mayor Alfonso Martinez (d.2002 at 81) denied any involvement
in the massacre that left over 30 protestors dead. In 2004 charges were
filed against former Pres. Echeverria, but a judge blocked his arrest.
(SFC, 6/13/02, p.A14)(SFC, 11/9/02, p.A19)(SFC,
7/24/04, p.A3)(WSJ, 7/26/04, p.A1)
1971 Aug 18, Joel David Kaplan
(44), a NY businessman and Carlos Antonio Contreras Castro, a
Venezuelan counterfeiter, escaped by helicopter from Mexico’s Santa
Maria Acatitla Federal Prison. Vasilios Basil Choulos (d.2003), SF
lawyer, plotted out the helicopter jailbreak. Kaplan was allegedly
framed and serving 28 years for murder in the Mexican prison. The
successful break led to the book "Ten-Second Jailbreak" and the 1975
film "Breakout."
(SFC, 1/21/02,
p.A21)(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909935,00.html)
1971 The documentary film "Walls
of Fire" by Herbert Kline was about Mexican artists Diego Rivera and
David Alfaro Siqueiros (d.1974).
(SFC, 2/13/99, p.A24)
1972 Oct 6, In Saltillo, Mexico, a
22-car train carrying 2,000 religious pilgrims derailed and caught
fire. 208 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1972 Mexico’s National Fund for
Worker’s Housing was created.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.33)
1972 Jose Kahn, a Chilean-born US
citizen, opened Metales & Derividos in Tijuana. The plant smelted
old US car and boat batteries. In 1987 it was told to clean up its
waste. In 1994 it was closed following years of ineffective
warnings.
(WSJ, 1/16/02, p.A12)
1972 In Mexico after guerrillas
ambushed and killed 18 troops, the army detained at least 90 men in the
village of El Quemado and took many of them to 3 different military
bases that served as "concentration camps." A 2006 government report on
Mexico’s “dirty war” said 7 of the men died from being tortured.
(AP, 2/27/06)
1973 Aug 28, More than 600 people
died as an earthquake shook central Mexico.
(AP, 8/28/08)
1973 Peasants in Baja formed a
cooperative called the Ejido Coronel Estaban Cantu and leased lots to
developers, residents and retirees who built expensive homes other
structures. In 1999 officials tried to carry out an eviction notice in
favor of the original landowners. In 2000 The Supreme Court ruled in
favor of several private companies, including Purua Punta Estero SA,
and began evicting US retirees.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.A23)(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A12)
1974 Jan 6, David Alfaro Siqueiros
(b.1896), Mexican artist (muralist), died. His work included the 1933
mural "Ejercicio Plastico" (Plastic Exercise), completed in Argentina
at the home of newspaper magnate Natalio Botana (d.1941). In 1994 the
650-square-foot work fell into a legal limbo.
(SFC, 2/13/99,
p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Alfaro_Siqueiros)
1974 Sep 18, Hurricane Fifi struck
Honduras with 110 mph winds and killed about 8,000. The hurricane made
landfall as a Category 2 storm in Belize on the next day, and continued
through Guatemala and Mexico as a tropical system. After weakening to a
depression, Fifi emerged into the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first
crossover storm since Hurricane Irene-Olivia in 1971.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Fifi-Orlene)
1974 Dec 2, Lucio Cabanas, leader
of a communist rebel group called the Party of the Poor, was killed in
a shootout with Mexican soldiers. In 2002 his remains were found in a
makeshift grave in Atoyac de Alvarez, a city outside a major military
base near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. Lino Rosas Perez and
Esteban Mesino Martinez were killed along with Cabanas, in a gunbattle
with authorities in the village of Otatal in southern Guerrero state.
Perez and Martinez were identified in 2006 using DNA evidence.
(AP, 8/13/02)(AP, 11/15/06)
1974 The book "Palinuro of Mexico"
by Fernando del Paso (b.1935) won the Premio de Mexico in manuscript
form but was not published in Mexico until 1980. The 1st edition was
published in Spain in 1977.
(SFEC, 10/6/96, BR
p.4)(www.complete-review.com/reviews/pasofd/palinuro.htm)
1974 Quintana Roo became a state
of Mexico.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.T4)
1974 The first hotel in Cancun
opened with 72 rooms.
(SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T10)
1975 Jan 2, Ken Brugger, searching
on behalf of Canadian entomologist Dr. Fred A. Urquhart, found that
vast numbers of monarch butterflies, wintered at Cerro Pelon, an
inactive volcano a hundred miles west of Mexico City. Urquhart had been
tagging butterflies and searching for their winter quarters since 1954.
In 1986 the Mexican government established some protection over 5 sites
where monarchs were known to overwinter.
(ON, 4/07, p.12)
1975 Apr 18, Jesus Ibarra Piedra,
a member of a Mexican leftist urban guerrilla group, was kidnapped and
never seen again. On Nov 8, 2004, Juventino Romero Cisneros, a former
agent of the Federal Security Directorate, was arrested for the
kidnapping. Carlos Solana Macias, ex-director of the Judicial Police
for the northern state of Nuevo Leon, was arrested Dec 29, 2005. In
2006 both Cisneros and Solano were released from prison.
(AP,
10/9/04)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosario_Ibarra_de_Piedra)(AP,
5/21/06)
1975 Oct 20, Mexico City's 1st
major subway accident took 20 lives.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Metro)
1975 The first UN Women’s
Conference was held in Mexico City.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.A27)
1976 Juan Jose Arreola (d.2001),
nationalist author, won the National Linguistics and Literature Prize.
His books included "La Feria" (1962).
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.A23)
1976 The peso was devalued and
caused a financial crises.
(WSJ, 12/20/96, p.A17)
1976 The world’s last major oil
field, yielding over a million barrels a day, was found in Mexico.
(WSJ, 6/28/05, p.D8)
1976-1982 In Mexico Jose Lopez Portillo served as
president. It was an era marked by anti-guerrilla campaigns,
ultra-nationalist foreign policies, and state-dominated protectionist
economics.
(SFC, 11/28/98, p.C2)
1977 In Merida the governor’s
residence reopened as the Museum of Anthropology and History.
(SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1977 Sinaloa, Mexico, became about
this time the birthplace of Mexican drug smuggling.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.A14)
1977 Sister Antonia Brenner (50),
an American nun born as Mary Clark in Los Angeles, moved into Mexico’s
La Mesa State Penitentiary, just across the border from San Diego, to
provide aid to prisoners.
(AP, 12/26/05)
1978 Jun, The FBI confronted
anthropologist Gilberto Lopez y Rivas of Mexico as a spy for the Soviet
Union. Agents were tipped by US Army Sgt. Joseph Cassidy, who spent
some 20 years as a double agent. In 2000 David Wise authored "Cassidy’s
Run." In 1997 Rivas was elected to Mexico’s Congress.
(SFC, 4/8/00, p.C1)
1978 Oct 18, Jaume Ramon Mercader
del Rio Hernandez (b.1914), aka Jacques Mornard, Spanish Communist and
murderer of Leon Trotsky, died in Cuba. Declassified archives showed
that he was a Soviet agent. In 1940 Mercader fatally wounded Trotsky
with an ice axe in his study at his home in Coyoacan, then a village on
the southern fringes of Mexico City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader)
1978 A Mexico City utility worker
found a stone slab that lay 15 feet below street level. He had
discovered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. The ruins appeared to be
those of the capital's great pyramid, the Templo Mayor.
(www.mexonline.com/templomayor.htm)
1979 Oct
31, A US DC-10, flown by Western Airlines, crashed at Mexico City when
it struck a vehicle and 74 were killed.
(http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetGOjg/Disasters.htm)
1979 Pennsylvania Prof. William T.
Sanders (d.1008 at 82) authored “The Basin of Mexico: Ecological
Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization.” He wrote the book
following an aerial survey with colleagues Jeffrey R. parsons and
Robert S. Santley.
(SFC, 7/18/08, p.B10)
1979 The village of Nueva
Jerusalem in Michoacan was founded by ex-communicated Catholic priest,
Nabor Cardenas. Six years earlier a peasant woman claimed to have seen
the Virgin Mary there. Nabors ran the village as a cult to the virgin
told villagers that the PRI was the party of the Holy Virgin.
(SFEC, 8/9/98, p.A18)
1980 Jan 25, A US-Mexico
Extradition Treaty, signed by Pres. Carter in 1978, went into effect.
It allowed Mexico to refuse extradition of suspects facing the
death penalty in the US.
(http://tinyurl.com/2svjk5)(www.escapingjustice.com/extrafpo.htm)
1980 Dec 28, Mexico ended a
bilateral fishing agreement with US in a dispute over tuna.
(http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id106.htm)
1980 A US-Mexico Extradition
Treaty allowed Mexico to refuse extradition of suspects facing the
death penalty in the US.
(SSFC, 8/10/03, p.A1)
1980-1989 US bottlers of Coca-Cola switched from cane
sugar to high-fructose corn syrup in the 1980s to cut costs. Mexican
bottlers continued to use cane sugar.
(WSJ, 1/11/06, p.A1)
1981 Jul-Aug, Some $9 billion in
capital leaked out of Mexico due to falling oil prices, the collapse of
the peso, and a foreign debt of $80 billion and rising.
(Econ, 3/6/04, p.77)
1981 Pronatura, a Mexican
non-governmental conservation organization, was founded. One of its
projects was to monitor bird migration through southern Mexico.
(NH, 10/96, p.50)
1981 Mexican crude oil peaked at
$38.50 a barrel.
(Econ, 3/6/04, p.77)
1982 Feb 18, Mexico devalued the
peso by 30 percent to fight an economic slide.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1982 Mar 24, In Mexico a fire
burned down the National Film Archive.
(www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC29folder/MexFilmBook.html)
1982 Jul 4, Miguel de la Madrid
Hurtado (b.1934) was elected president of Mexico. Madrid was chosen by
Pres. Portillo as his successor. De la Madrid took office in a year
when inflation had surpassed 100 percent and Mexico had a foreign debt
of $87 billion, much of it short-term.
(SFC, 11/28/98,
p.C2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_la_Madrid)(AP, 3/9/04)
1982 Aug 20, In Washington, DC,
Mexican Secretary of Finance, Jesus Silva Herzog, declared that “Mexico
did not have means to pay its due foreign debt and thus his Country was
assuming a moratorium.” US Fed Chairman Paul Volcker immediately
established a severe control upon money flow and practically the
immobilization of domestic or external credits. The crisis lasted 1,717
days. Volcker lent money to Mexico and arranged a moratorium on
repayment of bank loans.
(http://tinyurl.com/37xdmy)(WSJ, 8/30/07, p.A3)
1982 Aug 22, Alfonso Portillo, a
Guatemalan professor at Mexico’s Guerrero Autonomous Univ., shot and
killed 2 political adversaries outside a party. In 1999 Portillo ran as
a presidential candidate for the Guatemalan Republican Front and said
he had acted in self defense.
(SFC, 9/8/99,
p.A15)(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3335/is_200001/ai_n8048120)
1982 Sep 1, Mexico’s President
Lopez Portillo nationalized the private banks. There was an economic
catastrophe that has been labeled the Mexican debt crisis. Mexicans
sent hundreds of millions of dollars abroad amid devaluations and bank
nationalization.
(WSJ,
7/8/96,p.A1)(http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=330)
1982 Nov 10, The IMF lent Mexico
$3.8 billion due to threatened bankruptcy. The Mexican economy began to
be run under the guidance of the World Bank and the Int’l. Monetary
Fund.
(SFC, 9/16/96, p.A21)
1982 Mexico’s oil market collapsed.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A10)
1982-1990 Raul Salinas was an official of Conasupo, a
state-owned foodstuffs distributor and commodities trader.
(WSJ, 6/25/96, p.A11)
1983 Mar 18, Mexico's financial
crisis was causing a surge of illegal aliens over the border into
Texas.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1983 The La Paz Treaty was signed
whereby the US and Mexico agreed to reduce pollution within 60 miles of
their common frontier
(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A8)
1983 In Mexico Jesus Leon (17)
co-founded CEDICAM, the Center for Integral Small Farmer Development of
the Mixtec.
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.A4)
1983-1988 Manuel Bartlett Diaz was the Interior
Minister and oversaw the Federal Security Directorate (DFS).
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A16)
1984 Nov 19, Near Mexico City,
Mexico, 5 million liters of liquefied butane exploded at a storage
facility killing some 500 people.
(HSAB, 1994, p.46)(AP, 11/19/07)
1984 William Flanagan, head of
Arriba Ltd., signed a deal with Mexico’s Petroleum Worker’s Union for
at least 6 million barrels of slop oil. The union failed to deliver and
Flanagan won a suit in 1986. The judgement ballooned to nearly $250
million in 2002 with still no settlement.
(WSJ, 2/20/02, p.A1)
1985 Feb 7, US drug agent Enrique
"Kiki" Camarena was tortured and killed at a house in Guadalajara in
the presence of a half-dozen top Mexican officials. In 1992 Ruben Zuno
Arce, the brother-in-law of former president Luis Echeverria, was
convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1989 Miguel Angel Felix
Gallardo was arrested for complicity in the murder along with drug
charges and sentenced to 40 years in prison. In 2000 Gallardo received
a 2nd 40-year sentence for smuggling and bribery.
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A10)(SFC,
8/12/00, p.A11)
1985 Mar 6, In Mexico authorities
found the body of kidnapped US drug agent Enrique Camarena Salazar and
a Mexican pilot at a ranch east of Guadalajara.
(AP, 3/6/05)
1985 Sep 19, The Mexico City area
was struck by the first of two devastating quakes (8.1) that officially
claimed 9,500 lives. Some 40,000 people were injured.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(SFC, 12/31/96, p.C9)(AP,
9/19/97)(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.F4)
1985 Sep 22, Earthquake struck
Mexico, 2,000 killed. [see Sep 19]
(MC, 9/22/01)
1985 Samuel Joaquin Flores
succeeded in getting his Light of the World evangelical church
affiliated with the National Confederation of Popular Organizations, an
umbrella body for PRI-linked political groups.
(SFC, 2/19/98, p.A10)
1985 The Mexican environmental
organization Group of 100 was founded.
(SFC, 3/13/99, p.A14)
1985 Albert Radelat (32) and John
Walker (36), US tourists, were tortured and killed by drug traffickers
in Guadalajara. In 2001 Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo was sentenced to 30
years in prison for the torture slayings.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D2)
1986 Jun 19, Argentina beat West
Germany 3-2 in soccer's 13th World Cup in Mexico.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FIFA_World_Cup)
1986 Jun, In Mexico Gustavo
Petricioli Iturbe was named treasury secretary by Pres. Miguel de la
Madrid. The foreign debt was near $100 billion due to the collapse of
oil prices earlier in the decade.
(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.D10)
1986 The Sian Ka'an Biosphere on
the Punto Piedra peninsula in Quintana Roo was created by a
presidential decree.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.T6)
1987 Nov, In Mexico the peso was
devalued and caused the 3rd financial crises since 1976.
(WSJ, 12/20/96,
p.A17)(www.dallasfed.org/research/eclett/2006/el0606.html)
1987 Virginia Reade Belmontez
(d.1998 at 68) authored "Mexico Barbarro 1987," a book that exposed the
past of Mexico’s Pres. Salinas and his party’s oppression of the
Mexican people.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.C2)
1987 PRI chairman Munoz Ledo led a
political split from the PRI party and helped form the PRD.
(SFC, 9/2/97, p.A7)
1987 Ricardo Salinas Pliega became
president of his family-founded Grupo Elektra. He transformed it into a
major retailer.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A11)
1987 Julio Baldenegro, a
Mexican-Indian leader who opposed logging in Tarahumara mountains of
northern Mexico, was killed. His unsolved murder marked the beginning
of a wave of killings.
(AP, 8/12/03)
1988 Feb 13, President Reagan and
Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid met in the Mexican resort of
Mazatlan.
(AP, 2/13/98)
1988 Apr 20, Hector Felix, a
muckraking Mexican journalist, was murdered. He had dubbed Jorge Hank,
owner of the Tijuana Agua Caliente Racetrack, as “the Abominable
Snowman” for a reputed cocaine habit.
(SSFC, 8/5/07,
p.A15)(www.elandar.com/back/fall99/gato.html)
1988 Jul 6, In Mexican elections
the PRI declared itself the early winner without an official vote
count. The true results of the election were never made public.
Gortari, candidate for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party,
was losing badly to opposition candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas.
(AP, 3/9/04)
1988 Jul 7, The candidate of
Mexico's ruling party, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, claimed a "national
victory" one day after presidential elections that opponents charged
were riddled by fraud.
(AP, 7/7/98)
1988 Jul 10, Opposition party
activists in Mexico blocked a bridge linking their country to the
United States, charging that Mexico's recent presidential election was
marked by widespread fraud.
(AP, 7/10/98)
1988 Sep 14, Hurricane "Gilbert"
slammed into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula after forcing thousands of
residents to flee.
(AP, 9/14/00)
1988 Sep 15, Thousands of coastal
residents from Mexico to Louisiana were fleeing to higher ground, a day
after Hurricane Gilbert pounded the Yucatan Peninsula.
(AP, 9/15/98)
1988 Sep 16, Hurricane Gilbert
slammed into the Mexico coast for the second time in three days, its
center sweeping ashore north of La Pesca, 120 miles south of
Brownsville, Texas.
(AP, 9/16/98)
1988 Nov 22, Louis Barragan
(b.1902), considered the most important Mexican architect of the 20th
century, died in Mexico City. A 1996 book: "Barragan: The Complete
Works" focuses on 119 works and projects.
(SFEM, 9/22/96,
p.36)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Barrag%C3%A1n)(WSJ, 9/1/07,
p.P12)
1988 Dec 1, Carlos Salinas de
Gortari was sworn in as president of Mexico. He succeeded Pres. Miguel
de la Madrid. One of his first acts was to turn Agualeguas, the lost
family patrimony, into his official retreat.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-6)(SFC, 9/2/97, p.A7)(AP, 12/1/98)
1988 Dec 11, Sixty-two people were
killed when tons of illegal fireworks exploded in a Mexico City
marketplace.
(AP, 12/11/98)
1988 The Miguel Agustin Pro Human
Rights Center was founded to support peasants and Indians in Guerrero,
Oaxaca and Chiapas.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.C2)
1988 The government privatized
Masa, Mexicana de Autobuses SA.
(WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A10)
1988 The Democratic Revolutionary
Party (PRD) was founded. [see 1989]
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A18)
1988 Hurricane Gilbert devastated
the Yucatan peninsula and left 225 people dead.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.A15)
1988-1992 Dante Delgado was Governor of the oil-rich
Gulf-coast state of Veracruz. He was jailed in 1996 for amassing a $57
million fortune while in office.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.C5)
1988-1994 Carlos Salinas was president of Mexico. His
secretary, Justo Ceya, was ordered to be arrested in 1998 on charges
that he illegally amassed a fortune while in office.
(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A6)(SFC, 7/23/98, p.A10)
1989 Aug 9, A train fell into the
San Rafael River after a bridge collapsed, killing 112 people.
(AP, 8/9/99)
1989 Nov, In Mexico Jose Madariaga
joined Raul Salinas and TV exec Abraham Zabludovsky in buying Mexicana
de Autobuses SA, a bus manufacturing company, for $4.4 million.
(WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A10)
1989 The Democratic Revolutionary
Party (PRD) was founded.
(SFC, 3/25/02, p.A9)
1989 Mexico City officials
expropriated a 745-acre chunk of land on Mexico City's gritty east side
to build low-income housing. In 2003 Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
defied a court order to pay $160 million for the expropriation.
(AP, 11/6/03)
1989 Carlos Peralta (chairman of
Grupo Iusacell SA) received a lucrative government cellular concession
that gave him the key franchise in Mexico City and three surrounding
states.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-11)
1989 Raul Salinas under the name
of Juan Guillermo Gomez Gutierrez approached the Swiss Pictet Bank to
open an account. News also surfaced that Jose Madariaga Lomelin,
chairman of BBV Probursa SA, a banking group, and Abraham Zabludovsky,
an executive with Grupo Televisa SA, invested in a bus manufacturing
company with Raul Salinas.
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)
1989 Pres. Carlos Salina jailed
the union boss of the Oil Worker’s Union (STPRM) and slashed the number
of workers to 139,022 from 210,000.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A15)
1989 Ernesto Zedillo as a Cabinet
secretary granted a $7 mil payment to Maseca, a corn-flour maker, run
by Roberto Gonzalez Barrera, a close friend of Pres. Carlos Salinas. It
was supposed to be compensation money for government failure to pay
subsidies in the late 1980s, although 16 mil was paid in 1988.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)
1989 Gerardo de Prevoisin led an
investor group in the buyout of Aeromexico. In 1994 he was forced out
as chairman and in 1996 was accused of embezzling $72 mil.
(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A6)
1989-1990 Javier Coello Trejo served as deputy
attorney general and was the first drug czar under Pres. Carlos Salinas
de Gortari.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A11)
1989-1994 Pres. Carlos Salinas de Gortari led a
private autobahn spending spree that built 3,600 miles of superhighways
at a cost of $15 billion. Drivers avoided the toll roads and the
projects faced financial collapse. Public sector bailout was required.
(WSJ, 4/4/97, p.A9)
1990 Oct 11, Octavio Paz was named
the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, the first Mexican writer
so honored.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A17)(AP, 10/11/00)
1990 Mexico created a National
Human Rights Commission.
(Econ, 2/16/08, p.44)
1990 Mexican physician Humberto
Alvarez Machain was abducted by operatives of the US government. He had
been indicted in LA for involvement in the 1985 kidnapping and murder
of US drug agent Enrique Camarena. Machain was later acquitted. In 2001
a US federal appeals court ruled that the abduction violated an int’l.
human rights law.
(SFC, 9/13/01, p.C2)
1990 In Mexico Telefonos de Mexico
(Telmex) was privatized.
(WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A10)
1990 Compartamos was established
in Mexico as a non-profit group to make small, uncollateralized
business loans to the poor (microcredit).
(Econ, 3/17/07, p.84)
1990 Manuel Moreno Rivas (b.1909),
founder of Sinaloa’s El Debate newspaper, sold it.
(www.mexidata.info/id312.html)
1990 Carlos Hank Rhon won a
concession for an independent cellular license in western Mexico. He
paid $10 million for the right with BellSouth of Atlanta as a partner.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A6)
1990 The Laguna Verde nuclear
power plant near Xalapa in Veracruz state opened under popular
protests. By 1997-1998 issues of corruption, mismanagement and
disregard for safety regulations plagued the plant.
(SFC, 1/12/98, p.A10)
1990-1992 Raul Salinas was a consultant at the
anti-poverty agency known as Sedesol.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A6)
1991 Jun 24, Rufino Tamayo
(b.1899), a Zapotecan Indian artist born in the Mexican state of
Oaxaca, died in Mexico City. His painting “Tres Personajes,” sold in
1977 to a Houston couple for $55,000, was stolen in 1987. In 2003 it
was found amongst street trash on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
(SFC, 10/24/07,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufino_Tamayo)
1991 Dec 14, President Bush and
Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, meeting at Camp David,
Md., renewed their commitment to conclude quickly the North American
Free Trade Agreement.
(AP, 12/14/01)
1991 The Mexican banks were
reprivatized.
(WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-10)
1991 The city of Tuxtla Gutierrez
in Chiapas state opened Zona Galactica, a sector for controlled
prostitution.
(SFEC, 8/20/00, p.A14)
1991 Miguel Aleman Velasco,
billionaire from Veracruz State, sold his stake in the media giant
Televisa before entering the Senate. His eldest son Miguel Aleman
Magnani quickly purchased a new stake.
(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A18)
1991 Carlos Enrique Cervantes de
Gortari, cousin of Pres. Carlos Salinas, lost his job at the National
Institute of Nuclear Investigations following a scandal of misused
funds.
(WSJ, 4/15/97, p.A15)
1991 Telmex was privatized and
sold to Carlos Slim Helu, a stockbroker and the richest man in Latin
America. Telmex was sheltered from competition for 6 years and in 2002
controlled 96% of local phone service.
(WSJ, 10/23/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/16/02, p.A1)
1991-1995 The Publico newspaper reported in 1998 that
Jalisco state officials had shifted almost $20 million out of accounts
meant for charity and that at least $7 million went into PRI coffers
during this period.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A11)
1992 Feb, The Sada family won a
bid for Grupo Financiero Serfin SA, a big banking firm that was being
privatized by the government of Carlos Salinas. Mr. Sada also around
this time received a $15 mil payment from Raul Salinas to be used for
some business venture that Sada said was not used and that the funds
were returned to Raul Salinas.
(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.A6)
1992 Apr 22, In Guadalajara,
Mexico, more than 200 people were killed by a series of sewer
explosions.
(AP, 4/22/97)
1992 Raul Salinas and Carlos Hank
Rhon set up an appointment with Citibank private banker Amy Elliot in
New York to establish an account with Citibank for Mr. Salinas.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A1)
1992 May, A 2nd meeting took place
between Ms. Elliot and Raul Salinas, this time in Mexico City, to
establish an investment program that would move funds of Mr. Salinas
outside of Mexico.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A6)
1992 Jun, The first deposit to Mr.
Raul Salinas’ Trocca account came from Mr. Hank. The amount was for $2
million that Mr. Hank supposedly owed Mr. Salinas after a
cellular-phone business deal did not work out.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A6)
1992 Aug 11, In Washington,
D.C., negotiators for the United States, Canada and Mexico continued to
work out final details of the proposed North American Free Trade
Agreement.
(AP, 8/11/97)
1992 Aug 12, The North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was announced in Washington, D.C. after 14
months of negotiations between the United States, Mexico and Canada. It
created the world's wealthiest trading bloc.
(AP, 8/12/97)(HN, 8/12/02)
1992 Oct 7, Trade representatives
of the United States, Canada and Mexico initialed the North American
Free Trade Agreement during a ceremony in San Antonio, Texas.
(AP, 10/7/97)
1992 Dec 17, President Bush,
Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos
Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in
separate ceremonies.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1992 James Michener wrote his
novel "Mexico" and "My Lost Mexico."
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A17)
1992 Mexico’s Finance Minister
Pedro Aspe finally cut off government funding of the PRI party late in
1992.
(WSJ, 4/19/96, p.A-11)
1992 Pres. Carlos Salinas de
Gortari signed into law a reform of Article 27 of the Mexican
Constitution dismantling reform provisions that called for land
redistribution to the poor.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, BR p.4)
1992 Magdalena Ruiz Pelayo was
convicted of drug trafficking in Newark New Jersey. From 1982 she had
worked as the private secretary to Raul Salinas Lozano, father Pres.
Carlos Salinas. She later told US authorities that Salinas Lozano was a
leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul,
and his son-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu (assassinated in 1994).
(SFC, 2/26/97, p.A6)
1992 Carlos Cabal Peniche led a
group of several leading Mexican agricultural families in the purchase
of Fresh Del Monte from Polly Peck Int’l. PLC after the British
conglomerate collapsed.
(WSJ, 6/12/96, p.A13)
1992 Servando Ramirez, a social
activist, was murdered in Novalato. Jorge Aguirre Meza was appointed
special prosecutor to investigate. Meza eventually swore out a murder
warrant against Rios Felix.
(SFEC, 2/28/99, p.A18)
1992-1994 Bank records showed that Raul Salinas de
Gortari made more than 150 cash deposits totaling $80 million in the
Mexico City branch Banca Cremi.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)
1992-1994 The Fund for Bank Savings Protection
(Fobaproa) was set up. It was used to absorb bad loans as the country’s
banks were being privatized.
(SFC, 8/3/98, p.A13)
1992-2000 Environmental groups say wealthy landowners
and power brokers, profiting from logging Mexico’s Petatlan Sierra,
destroyed 40 percent of 558,000 acres of woodland, some of the worst
deforestation on the planet. In 2005 after a month-long blockade by
peasants, Boise Cascade canceled contracts for massive cutting
operations in the Petatlan mountains, citing supply problems, and 15
logging permits were revoked. Since then at least a dozen peasant
leaders have been targeted. Some have been arrested and jailed on what
are widely seen as bogus charges engineered by political and economic
interests profiting from logging. Others have gone into hiding and some
have been killed.
(Reuters, 7/21/05)
1993 Apr 20, Mario Moreno (81),
Mexican comedian known as Cantinflas, died in Mexico City. His films
included "Around the World in 80 Days."
(AP, 4/20/98)
1993 May 24, Juan Jesus Posada
Ocampo (66), Roman Catholic Cardinal, and six other people were killed
at the Guadalajara, Mexico, airport in what was described as a shootout
involving drug gangs. Gunmen of the four Arellano Felix Brothers
murdered Ocampo apparently mistaking him for a rival drug lord. Drug
cartel leader Hector Luis Palma was charged and sentenced in connection
to the killing on Jan 3, 1997. In 1998 members of a San Diego street
gang were indicted as hired hit men in the slayings that left 7 dead.
In 2005 a court sentenced Humberto Rodriguez Banuelos, a former police
commander, to 40 years in prison for his role in the murders. In all,
12 gunmen, including Rodriguez, were convicted and sentenced in the
attack on the cardinal. In 2008 Araujo Avila, an alleged drug cartel
hit man, was arrested in Tijuana in relation to Ocampo’s murder.
(WSJ, 10/7/96, p.A16)(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A12)(SFC,
2/11/98, p.A3)(AP, 5/24/98)(AP, 12/9/05)(AP, 1/27/08)
1993 May, Mr. Raul Salinas began
sending out large quantities of money into his New York concentration
account with Citibank. He was afraid the unstable markets and the
possibility of a peso devaluation.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A6)
1993 Jun, Raul Salinas married
Paulina Castanon.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A6)
1993 Jul, Ricardo Salinas Pliego
won a privatization auction of Mexico’s government-run TV Azteca with a
bid of $643 million. It later emerged that he had borrowed nearly $30
million from Raul Salinas, the brother of then-Pres. Carlos Salinas (no
relation), prompting some to question whether the sale had been rigged.
(WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A11)
1993 Aug 11, Pope John Paul II
visited Mexico.
(http://tinyurl.com/ckmy6)
1993 Aug 13, Negotiators for the
US, Canada and Mexico announced they had resolved side issues
concerning the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
(AP, 8/12/98)
1993 Sep 9-1993 Sep 14, Hurricane
Gert caused 76 deaths. It affected Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, and
Nicaragua.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1993 Sep, Raul Salinas lent $29.8
mil for 6 years at 12% to Ricardo Salinas Pliego to buy TV Azteca,
Mexico’s 2nd largest network, from the government for $669 mil.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.D1) (WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A10)
1993 Nov 22, Mexico's Senate
overwhelmingly approved the North American Free Trade Agreement.
(AP, 11/22/98)
1993 Dec, Mario Ruiz Massieu,
deputy attorney general from 1993-1994, opened an account at the Texas
Commerce Bank and began to deposit cash that eventually totaled some $9
million.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, p.A14)
1993 Rogelio Montemayor was
elected governor of Coahuila state.
(WSJ, 6/16/99, p.A1)
1993 Mexico created its Federal
Competition Commission (CFC), an antitrust agency.
(WSJ, 4/21/02, p.A12)
1993 Gen’l. Jose Francisco
Gallardo called for the creation of a human rights ombudsman within the
military. He was jailed in 1993 and court-martialed in 1998 on charges
of corruption, destroying files and using army funds for personal use.
he was sentenced to an additional 14 years in prison for illegal
enrichment after failing to demonstrate the origin of 1.2 million pesos
in his bank accounts. Gallardo was freed by Pres. Fox in 2002.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B3)(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A14)(SFC,
2/8/02, p.A12)
1993 The PRI held a secret meeting
with 30 major industrialists who committed a total of $750 million to
finance the presidential campaign in 1994.
(WSJ, 4/19/96, p.A-11)
1993 Raul Salinas and Jose
Madariaga cashed out of their investment in Mexicana de Autobuses SA
for $36 million.
(WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A10)
1993 Carlos Peralta closed a 1.04
billion deal for a 42% investment from Bell Atlantic Corp. of the US.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-11) (WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A10)
1993 In Baja the San Ignacio
Lagoon and Laguna Ojo de Liebre were deemed a Natural World Heritage
Site. The area was a spawning site for gray whales.
(SFEM, 5/7/00, p.8)
1993-1994 In 1998 Adrian Carrera Fuentes, former
director of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, was allowed to travel
to the US to testify. In Houston he told a grand jury that he had
collected nearly $2 million in drug bribes in 1993-1994 and turned the
money over to Mario Ruiz Massieu, who fled Mexico in 1995.
(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A8)
1993-2001 An estimated 300 sex killings of young
women took place in the Juarez area along the US border, across from El
Paso. In 2002 Lourdes Portillo, filmmaker, completed a documentary on
the killings: "Senorita Extraviada" (Missing Young Women).
(SFC, 3/11/99, p.A12)
1994 Jan 1, Some 2,000 Zapatista
guerrillas under the leadership of Subcommander Marcos rose up against
the government in the state of Chiapas. The Zapatista National
Liberation Army launched a rebellion to press for better living
conditions for Indian peasants in Chiapas.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A8)(SFC,12/18/97, p.C2)(AP, 1/1/99)
1994 Jan 12, After an initial hard
line, the government agreed to a cease-fire with the Zapatista rebels.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C2)
1994 Jan, Poor Maya farmers staged
an uprising at the Lancandon rain forest near Palenque, Mexico.
(SFC, 5/19/96, T-9)
1994 Mar 2, The government of
Mexico and Indian rebels reached a tentative accord on most insurgent
demands for the ending the rebellion, including sweeping political
reforms.
(AP, 3/299)
1994 Mar 23, The ruling party's
pres. candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, was murdered while campaigning
in Tijuana, Mexico. Mario Aburto Martinez later confessed to shooting
Colosio twice and was sentenced to a 45-year sentence. The events were
later examined by Sebastian Rotella in his book: "Twilight on the Line:
Underworlds and Politics at the US-Mexican Border."
(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-14)(SFC, 4/18/96, p.a-13)(SFC,
8/8/96, p.A8)(SFEC, 1/25/98, BR p.9)
1994 Mar 29, Mexico's ruling party
picked Ernesto Zedillo to be its new presidential candidate, replacing
the assassinated Luis Donaldo Colosio.
(AP, 3/29/99)
1994 Jun 11, A car bomb blew up
outside a luxury hotel in Guadalajara, Mexico, killing five people in
an apparently drug-related attack.
(AP, 6/11/99)
1994 cJun, Carlos Peralta claimed
in Jan of 1996 to have given Raul Salinas 50 mil at this time to help
set up an investment fund. He said that 20 other prominent Mexicans
contributed.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-11)
1994 Aug 21, Mexico held its
presidential election, which was won by Ernesto Zedillo.
(AP, 8/21/99)
1994 Aug, Federal police bodyguard
Raul Macias passed 2 cash filled suitcases to the car trunk of Mario
Ruiz Massieu, a deputy attorney general. The drug money was received
from police commander Jesus David Grajeda Lara (d.12/95).
(SFC, 3/13/97, p.A14)
1994 Sep 28, In Mexico Jose
Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 man of the governing Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) was murdered. Raul Salinas de Gortari was
later arrested and accused of masterminding the murder. Manuel Munoz
Rocha, a federal congressman, disappeared after the 9/28/94 slaying of
Ruiz Massieu. Prosecutors later said that Salinas and Rocha conspired
to kill Massieu. Raul Salinas was convicted in 1999.
(WSJ, 4/15/96, p.A-15)(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12)(SFC,
1/22/99, p.A10)
1994 Nov, In the tiny oil state of
Tabasco the government party spent $38.8 million to win the elections.
Roberto Madrazo won over leftist opponent Andres Lopez Obrador. The
money spent was 38 times the legal spending limit and $37 million more
than the campaign declared. The population of Tabasco is only 1.5 mil.
Paul Karam, later identified as a money laundering suspect with links
to banker Carlos Cabal Peniche, contributed some 12.4 million pesos to
the ruling party trust fund. Peniche in 1999 said he donated $25
million to the PRI.
(SFC, 6/8/96, p.A10) (WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A12)(SFC,
6/4/99, p.D2)
1994 Dec 1, Pres. Carlos Salinas
de Gortari left office. Within weeks speculators began to attack the
overvalued peso.
(SFEC, 6/13/99, p.A13)
1994 Dec, New owners of Radio 13
in Mexico City switched to an all-talk format. By 1997 there were 7 AM
stations on an all-talk format.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A14)
1994 US Prof. Stanton L. Catlin
(d.1997 at 82) shared a Grammy Award for the book "Mexico: Its Culture
Life in Music and Art," that was accompanied by a Columbia Records
Legacy Collection on Mexican music. He helped the Mexican national
university compile record of Mexican murals.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A21)
1994 The Westin Regina hotel was
built in San Jose del Cabo in Baha, Mexico. It was the most expensive
Mexican hotel at the time.
(SSFC, 2/6/05, p.F8)
1994 In Chiapas, Mexico, Maya
farmers organized into the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
(SFC, 5/19/96, T-10)
1994 The government started peace
negotiations with the Zapatistas.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C2)
1994 Mexico joined the
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
(WSJ, 8/10/05, p.A9)
1994 Mexican banker Carlos Cabal
Peniche after being accused of an elaborate self-lending scheme
involving hundreds of million of dollars through his two banks, Banco
Union SA and Banca Cremi SA, fled the country. He was also a large
investor in southeastern Mexico and maintained a banana plantation in
Tabasco.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A12)
1994 Del Monte entered into an
ill-fated agreement to sell the company for $1 billion to an investment
group led by Mexican banker Carlos Cabal Peniche, who was later charged
with fraud by the Mexican government.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.B1)
1994 Rigoberto Gaxiola Medina was
indicted on marijuana trafficking charges by a federal grand jury in
Detroit. Some 183 million dollars were identified in his banking
accounts but by Jan 23, 1997 only 16.7 million was seized by Mexican
officials. The family had large legitimate holdings in Sonora.
(WSJ, 4/1/97, p.A15)
1994 Alfredo Harp Helu, president
of Banamex, was kidnapped. He was ransomed after 3 months for $30 mil.
Angel Losada Moreno, head of Mexico’s largest supermarket chain, was
also kidnapped and ransomed for a rumored similar amount. In 1996
authorities claimed to have recovered nearly $10 mil of the Helu ransom.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1994 The cellular license owned by
Carlos Hank Rhon and BellSouth was sold to Grupo Iusacell , owned by
the Peralta family, for over $100 million.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A6)
1994 The "Metales y Derivados"
plant, a car battery recycling facility in Tijuana, was closed for
failure to properly dispose hazardous waste. Investigations into
pollution from the plant were demanded in 2000.
(SFC, 5/19/00, p.D4)
1994 The El Vizcaino Biosphere
Region in Baja California was declared a UN World Heritage Site.
(SFC, 3/13/99, p.A14)
1994 Socorro Island, one of the
Revilagigedo Islands south of Baja, was declared a ‘biosphere reserve."
(SFC, 6/14/00, p.B2)
1994 A disease called Zebra chip,
which affected potatoes and caused potato chips to develop stripes, was
first noticed in Mexico. By 2000 it had spread to Texas. It was later
found that an insect called the potato psyllid served as a vector for
the disease.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.81)
1994 A drought began in northern
Mexico.
(SFC, 5/15/99, p.A11)
1994-1995 Mexico experienced an economic collapse and
messy peso devaluation.
(Econ, 12/13/03, p.35)
1995 Jan 3, Mexican President
Ernesto Zedillo announced an emergency plan for wage and price controls
and budget cuts to stabilize the peso and combat spiraling inflation.
The peso had lost 37% of its value since Dec. 20, 1994.
(WSJ, 1/13/95, p.A-3)(AP, 1/3/00)
1995 Jan 4, Eduardo Mata (52),
Mexican conductor, died in air crash.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1995 Jan-1995 Jun, Almost 9,000
companies went bankrupt and 1 million Mexicans were thrown out of work.
(SFC, 8/3/98, p.A13)
1995 Feb 21, The United States and
Mexico signed an agreement to unlock $20 billion in U.S. support to
stabilize the peso, but under tough conditions.
(AP, 2/21/00)
1995 Feb 28, Raul Salinas de
Gortari was arrested for masterminding the murder of Jose Francisco
Ruiz Sep 28, 1994. He was imprisoned in Almaloya prison, Mexico’s
highest-security facility. In 1998 Raul Salinas was acquitted of money
laundering but remained in jail on murder and illegal-enrichment
charges.
(WSJ, 4/15/96, p.A-15)(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A6)(SFC,
5/22/98, p.D4)(SFC, 1/22/99, p.A10)
1995 Feb, Mexico borrowed $20 bil
from the US.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. A-1)
1995 Feb, The Mexican government
identified Subcommander Marcos of the Zapatistas as former university
Prof. Rafael Sebastian Guillen. A government offensive reduced the
amount of territory controlled by the rebels.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C2)
1995 Mar 10, The Clinton
administration released $3 billion to support Mexico's faltering
economy. Former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari fled to the
United States.
(AP, 3/10/00)
1995 Mar 23, Former Mexican deputy
attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu, brother of slain Francisco, was
arrested in Newark N.J. after failing to declare $46,000 in cash.
(SFC, 3/13/97, p.A14)(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A8)(SFC,
8/28/99, p.A1)
1995 Mar, Secret negotiations took
place in Mexico between Pres. Ernesto Zedillo and his predecessor
Carlos Salinas They struck a deal to protect Salinas from prosecution
or interrogation on corruption and murder charges. The episode was
described in "Bordering On Chaos: Guerrillas, Stockbrokers, Politicians
and Mexico’s Road to Prosperity" by Andres Oppenheimer.
(SFC, 6/3/96, BR p.12)
1995 Jun 23, Hector "El Guero"
Palma, reputed head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested after his
plane crashed near Guadalajara. He faced 9 counts of murder for the
killing of 9 relatives and associates of his rival Miguel Angel Felix
Gallardo. Gallardo had earlier decapitated Palma’s first wife and
arranged the murder of his 2 children.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A11)
1995 June 28, Mexican police fired
on a group of peasants at Agua Blancas in Guerrero. An edited video
aired nationally showed that the peasants were armed, but raw video
later showed police shooting unarmed peasants, who were than filmed
with planted weapons on their corpses. 17 peasants from the leftist
Southern Sierra Campesino Organization were killed and 23 others
wounded. In 1996 Virgilia Galeana Garcia testified that Gen. Mario
Arturo Acosta Chaparro was at the scene of the massacre.
(SFC, 4/28/96, A-16)(SFC, 6/15/96, p.C12)(SFC,
9/2/00, p.A14)
1995 Sep 27-Oct 6, Hurricane Opal
caused at least 50 deaths in Guatemala and Mexico and 20 deaths in the
United States. The storm hit Central America before striking Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1995 Oct, An earthquake of 7.8
magnitude shakes Mexico's Pacific coast killing at least 90 in southern
Jalisco state.
(WSJ, 10/10/95, p.A-1)
1995 Oct, The country's currency
plunged to its lowest level in seven months. Finance Minister Guillermo
Ortiz was trying to complete an economic plan for 1996. President
Ernesto Zedillo sent Congress a bill to set up an independent agency to
audit federal spending in the hopes of combating official corruption.
(WSJ, 10/27/95, p.A-10) (WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-12)
1995 Oct, Aaron Lopez Smith
allegedly murdered 2 brothers in Sonora and fled across the border to
Arizona. He was extradited in 1998.
(SFC, 2/16/98, p.A11)
1995 Nov 15, Swiss police arrested
Paulina Castanon, wife of Raul Salinas, a former government official
and brother of former president Carlos Salinas. Raul is now in jail for
involvement in the murder of Jose Francisco, the No. 2 official in the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Paulina was arrested for
trying to withdraw money under false identification from accounts
holding $84 mil. Carlos Salinas is currently a director of Dow Jones
& Co., publ. of the Wall St. Journal. Raul's $14 million in Mexican
real-estate holdings along with the bank deposits are being used to
prove that he committed financial improprieties as a government
functionary.
(WSJ, 11/27/95, p.A-13) (WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-1,6)
1995 Nov 29, The attorney general,
Antonio Lozano Grazia, says that perhaps 80% of his federal judicial
police are corrupt.
(WSJ, 12/29/95, p.A-11)
1995 Nov, A congressional
commission on government corruption was set up.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A9)
1995 Dec, The Garza Sadas family
dominates the glass business in Mexico.
(WSJ, 12/1/95, p.A-10)
1995 Dec, The Mexican government
was investigating fraudulent business practices of Adriana Salinas.
Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu was the ex-husband of Adriana Salinas,
sister of the ex-president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
(WSJ, 12/1/95, p.A-10)
1995 Dec, The Mexican government
planned to take control of Grupo Financiero Inverlat SA to recapitalize
the ailing bank. Equity will be severely diluted or perhaps wiped out.
(WSJ, 12/1/95, p.A-10)
1995 Dec, Banamex, Mexico's
largest banking group, planned to sell nearly $2 billion in bad loans
to the government.
(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-1)
1995 Dec, Eight of Mexico's 18
largest banks have sought government assistance. They plan to transfer
$5.6 bil in bad loans to the government.
(WSJ, 12/21/95, p.A-5)
1995 Mexico’s GDP fell by 6% this
year.
(Econ, 10/11/08, SR p.26)
1995 In Mexico a new
pension-revision program was aimed at increasing domestic savings to
22% of gross domestic product by the year 2000.
(WSJ, 11/10/95, p. A-6)
1995 Mexico’s Pres. Ernesto
Zedillo signed a law creating the Cabo Pulmo National Marine Reserve
off the Baha Peninsula in the Gulf of California.
(SFC, 1/17/06, p.A10)
1995 Santiago Levy, Mexico’s
deputy finance minister, began a program in Campeche to pay poor
mothers to keep their children in school and take their kids to the
health clinic. The program called Progresa was successful and under
Pres. Fox was renamed Oportunidades.
(Econ, 11/18/06, Survey
p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/ubndr)
1995 Mexico created Cintra, a
holding company to rescue Aeromexico and Mexicana airlines.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.63)
1995-1997 Oscar Espinosa Villarreal served as the
PRI-appointed mayor of Mexico City. In 2000 corruption charges were
filed with allegations that he embezzled some $46 million during his 3
years in office.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.E4)
1996 Jan 1, Two buses collided in
northern Mexico, killing 25 people.
(AP, 1/1/01)
1996 Jan 15, Juan Garcia Abrego, a
top drug suspect, was arrested and deported to the US for trial. He
allegedly headed a syndicate with links to cocaine operations in
Columbia. Horacio Brunt, Mexican policeman, collared Juan Garcia
Abrego, a Mexican drug kingpin. Abrego ‘s gang raked in more than $10
bil a year in revenue.
(WSJ, 1/16/96, p. A-1)(WSJ, 4/12/96,
p.A-1)
1996 Jan 29, Mexico paid the US
$1.3 billion. It was the second payment of a $20 bil US loan from last
February.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. A-1)
1996 Jan, The FAC-NLN was founded
as a nationwide leftist coalition.
(SFC, 12/10/96, p.A13)
1996 Feb, In San Andres Larrainzar
in Chiapas the government signed a partial peace accord on indigenous
rights with the Zapatistas.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C2)
1996 Mar, Gov. Ruben Figueroa of
Guerrero stepped down after the Supreme Court began an investigation
over the June-’95 killing of peasants.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.C12)
1996 Apr 4, The average negotiated
wage in Mexico has been 19%, far below the inflation rate of 27-30%
forecast by independent economists. The government just raised the
minimum wage 12% but also implemented a 27% raise in the cost of
tortillas.
(WSJ, 4/4/96, A-10)
1996 Apr 10, A protest group of
about 500 peasants was fired on by police with one killed and dozens
wounded. They were headed to the annual Zapata commemoration in
Tlaltizapan, the site of Zapata’s headquarters.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-10)
1996 Apr 12, A judge in Toluca,
Mexico ordered that Raul Salinas de Gortari stand trial on charges of
hiding millions of dollars in unexplained income during his
career as administrator of food-subsidy programs in the 1980s.
(WSJ, 4/15/96, p.A-15)
1996 Apr 17, The former chief
prosecutor, Jose Arturo Ochoa Palacios, in the initial investigation of
the murder of pres. candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was gunned down in a
Tijuana park.
(SFC, 4/18/96, p.a-13)
1996 Apr 22, Edwin Bustillos was a
Goldman Award winner for his work as defender of native lands and
culture in Mexico.
(USAT, 4/22/96, p.4-D)
1996 Apr 30, Five climbers were
burned to death by a blast from Popocatepetl volcano.
(SFEC, 11/29/98, p.A27)
1996 Apr, Three brothers from
Michoacan died in Temecula, Calif., when their hired coyote drove a van
over a cliff while being pursued by the Border Patrol. In 2001 Ruben
Martinez authored "Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant
Trail," an account of their story.
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.M6)
1996 May 7, Indian supporters of
the Zapatista rebels occupied two radio stations in Chiapas and
demanded the release of Javier Elloriaga, a TV journalist who was
sentenced to 13 years in prison last week on charges of being a
Zapatista commander. Sub-commander Marcos later signed his
communiqués "speedy Gonzalez."
(SFC, 5/8/96, p.A-19)(SFEC, 7/20/98, p.A10)
1996 May 8, A government task
force in the state of Sinaloa issued a report on the mysterious
chupacabras or "goat-sucker." An unknown creature has been killing
goats and leaving fang marks. The report said: There is no goat sucker,
but pollution is now so bad that it is driving animals mad, giving them
the behavioral trappings of crazed alien creatures."
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 10, A plane crashed and
killed 16 people in the rugged mountains of northwestern Mexico. The
twin-turboprop De Haviland Twin Otter DHC-6 was flying from Durango and
crashed in Santa Maria de Otaes, a small mining town.
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 16, The government
announced a plan to pay debt-strapped home-owners up to 30% of their
monthly mortgage payments thus easing the pressure on the country’s
bleeding banks.
(SFC, 5/17/96, p.A-15)
1996 May 18, Sergeo Moreno Perez,
regional head of the Attorney General’s office in Baja was found shot
with his son on the outskirts of Mexico City.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-9)
1996 May 23, In Mexico a teacher’s
march turned into a bloody confrontation with police and 40 teachers
were injured. Pres. Zedillo later fired Police Chief David Garay for
his heavy-handed action.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A12)
1996 May 24, In Paris a meeting of
21 donor countries agreed to a $49 bil emergency bailout fund to deal
with future Mexican economic crises.
(SFC, 5/24/96, p.A14)
1996 May 31, Tens of thousands of
teachers marched in Mexico City for a pay raise and to protest the
police crack-down on a previous march last week. Most teacher salaries
are about $400 per month.
(SFC, 6/1/96, p.A12)
1996 May, Police official Jesus
Carolla and others were reported by Mexican intelligence to have met
with the Arellano Felix brothers, alleged leaders of the Tijuana drug
cartel.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C3)
1996 Jun 3, Navistar Int’l will
open an assembly plant and parts distribution operation this year.
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. B6C)
1996 Jun 8, General Enrique
Salgado assumed Mexico City’s top police job and indicated that he
would appoint military officers to key public security posts. He also
said that he will stress citizen participation in forming policy.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C16)
1996 Jun 10, A report on Mexico
estimated that 800,000 children under 14 worked in different sectors of
the economy. The Mexican constitution and federal labor law prohibits
the employment of children under 14. Based on a 1990 census, the Sec.
of Public Education estimated that 2.5 million children between 6 &
14 do not attend school.
(SFC, 6/10/96, C3)
1996 Jun 11, A Chilean-based fruit
company signed a letter of intent to purchase Fresh Del Monte Produce
NV for $534 mil. A subsidiary of United Trading Company Desarollo &
Comercio SA of Santiago signed the letter. Mr. Cabal remains a minority
shareholder through a Netherlands Antilles fund called Trumpet Vine
where he and the state-owned development bank, Nacional Financiera SA,
placed an 8.5% equity stake in 1992.
(WSJ, 6/12/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 16, Gov. Ruben Figueroa
of was cleared by the judicial authorities of Guerrero after an
investigation over the June-’95 police killing of peasants.
(SFC, 6/15/96, p.C12)
1996 Jun 19, Mexico will repay
$4.7 billion of the $10.5 billion in US Treasury borrowings from last
year.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, p.A1)
1996 Jun 28, A new guerrilla
group, The People’s Revolutionary Army (EPR), disrupted a political
meeting in the state of Guerrero.
(SFC, 7/2/96, p.A8)
1996 Jun, Near Alamos in southern
Sonora state the 225,000-acre Sierra de Alamos-Rio Cuchujaqui Flora and
Fauna Protected Area was established.
(NH, 4/97, p.38)
1996 Jul 9, Mexico City’s police
chief announced that every top official in his department was replaced
with military officers. The move was made to break up corruption and
abuse in the old "brotherhood."
(SFC, 7/10/96, p.A7)
1996 Jul 25, Mexico said it will
repay $7 bil of the remaining $10.5 bil borrowed from the US Treasury,
partly through a $6 bil issue of securities.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul, Congress passed
constitutional amendments designed to control fraud and reduce the
advantage of the PRI.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)
1996 Aug 16, In Mexico Attorney
General Antonio Lozano fired 734 members of the Mexico City judicial
police in an attempt to reform the drug-fighting force. Police official
Jesus Carolla, was on the list, but resigned before being fired.
(SFC, 8/17/96, p.A14)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C3)
1996 Aug 17, Federal prosecutor,
Jesus Romero Magan, was killed. He was the first prosecutor to
interrogate the gunman who killed Luis Colosio, the pres. candidate in
1994.
(SFC, 8/19/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 28, In Mexico the EPR
struck at government targets in 6 states and left at least 6 dead and
28 injured.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A1)
1996 Aug, Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador (43) became president of the PRD party.
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug, The Zapatista rebels
pulled out of peace talks and accused the government of stalling.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.C2)
1996 cAug, The US Army began a
training program for Mexican officers to develop an elite
counter-narcotics unit.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.A18)
1996 Sep 13, In Mexico Juan
Francisco Ealy, editor of El Universal, was arrested on allegations of
tax fraud. His paper had recently begun strong criticism of the Zedillo
government.
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 15, Federal police
officer Ernesto Ibarra Santes (50) was gunned down in Mexico City. He
was in charge of drug trafficking in Baha California del Norte, the
center of operations for the narcotics cartel of the Arellano Felix
brothers. He had only taken the position on Aug 16.
(SFE, 9/16/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 17, In Mexico Razhy
Gonzalez, editor of the small Contrapunto weekly, was abducted in
Oaxaca.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 22, Mexico’s Civic
Alliance began asking questions of accountability of the leadership.
Pres. Zedillo claims to make $8,000 a month, but he has a secret fund
of $86 million approved by Congress.
(SFC, 9/22/96, Parade p.30)
1996 Sep 23, Financing was
expected to enable the start of the $551 million channel project, a
272-mile Tamaulipas Intracoastal Waterway on the east coast to link
Mexico to US cargo channels.
(WSJ, 9/23/96, p.A17)
1996 Sep 27, PRI deputies
presented a final report on government corruption and voted to end the
commission of corruption. A separate government panel said $1.34
billion was missing from the 1990 privatization of Telefonos de Mexico.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A9)
1996 Oct 2, Mexican and US
authorities captured 5 alleged hit men of the Arellan Felix brothers
drug cartel in a series of raids in Mexico and California.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 9, Police found a human
skull and bones on a ranch owned by Raul Salinas. Police were led to
the site by Francisca Zetina, aka "La Paca" a self proclaimed witch.
They suspected that it was Manuel Munoz Rocha, a federal congressman
who disappeared after the 9/28/94 slaying of Ruiz Massieu. Prosecutors
say that Salinas and Rocha conspired to kill Massieu. An official
autopsy showed that the found body had undergone a previous autopsy.
Later examination found that the body was not that of Munoz Rocha but
of Zetina’s father-in-law (d.1993). In 1999 Zetina was sentenced to 9
years in prison.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12) (SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11) (SFC,
12/3/96,p.A12) (SFC, 2/1/97, p.A12) (SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1996 Oct 10, It was reported that
Mexico had the highest rate of deforestation in the world with 2.5
million acres of forest and jungle felled each year.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A12)
1996 Oct 11, Zapatista Commander
Ramona, a 4 foot 4 inch Tzotzil Indian, arrived in Mexico City to plead
the rebel cause.
(SFC, 10/15/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 25, The opera Florencia
en el Amazonas premiered in Houston. It was composed by Daniel Catan of
Mexico with libretto by Marcela Fuentes-Berain.
(WSJ, 11/1/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 27, The EPR announced the
end of a cease-fire with the federal government.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A9)
1996 Oct, Eli Aguilar, leader of
the Francisco Villa Patriotic Front, Mexico City’s largest slum
organizing committee was arrested on year-old charges for clashing with
the police.
(SFC, 12/10/96, p.A13)
1996 Nov 1, Five police officers
were slain in southern Mexico and another outside Mexico City. The EPR
claimed responsibility.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A9)
1996 Nov 7, Police and army units
arrested 14 men as suspected leftist guerrillas in Oaxaca. In Chiapas
state 27 members of humanitarian groups working with rebel villages
received death threats.
(SFC, 11/8/96, p.A18)
1996 Nov 10, In Chiapas police and
federal soldiers killed 3 protestors during a clash over corn prices.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Nov 14, PRI deputies approved
the rewritten "all-party accords" that had been initially designed to
stem their power.
(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A11)
1996 Nov, A new insurgency group
called ERIP (Revolutionary Army of Popular Insurgence) was reported in
the mountains of the Papalopan region of Oaxaca.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.T9)
1996 Nov, In Loxicha, Oaxaca,
police and army troops arrested the mayor, the municipal council and 40
others. They were members or supporters of FAC-MLN, the Broad Front for
the Construction of a National Liberation Movement whose goals included
a new constitution, state regulated economic policies with more social
spending, and an end to government crackdown on its followers.
(SFC, 12/10/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 2, Pres. Ernesto Zedillo
fired Attorney Gen’l. Antonio Lozano Gracia, the only non-PRI cabinet
member. He was succeeded by Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, the head of the
human-rights commission.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A12)(WSJ, 12/3/96, p.A1)
1996 Dec 3, Fernando Balderas,
lawyer-journalist, and his wife Yolanda Figueroa and 3 children were
beaten to death. The couple had reported exposes on drugs and
corruption in the government. Balderas published the magazine Fourth
Power. Alejandro Perez, the family chauffeur, later confessed to
participating in the killings with 2 others because Balderas had raped
the gardener’s wife and attempted to rape his wife. Balderas had helped
his wife write "The Boss of the Gulf," about drug cartel leader Juan
Garcia Abrego.
(SFC, 12/7/96, p.A10)(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B4)
1996 Dec 15, Humberto Roque
Villanueva was sworn in as the new head of the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI).
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A25)
1996 Dec 18, Former Veracruz
Governor Dante Delgado was jailed for amassing a $57 million fortune
while in charge of the oil-rich Gulf-coast state.
(SFC, 12/19/96, p.C5)
1996 Dec 26, The Dept. of Commerce
announced a 15% price hike in the cost of tortillas and pasteurized
milk.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.B3)
1996 Dec, Carlos Fuentes published
"A New Time for Mexico."
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.C9)
1996 Mexico changed its
constitution to allow émigré nationals to vote, but no
law was passed to enable the change.
(Econ, 6/26/04, p.40)
1996 General Jesus Guitterez
Rebollo allegedly attended a meeting between military officials and
drug smugglers.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1997 Jan 1, Long-distance
telephone competition began and ended a 49-year monopoly.
(SFC, 1/1/97, p.B3)
1997 Jan 3, A Jalisco state judge
dismissed drug trafficking charges against Hector Luis Palma, leader of
the Sinaloa drug cartel. He was sentenced to 6 years on lesser charges.
(SFC, 1/9/96, p.A12)
1997 Jan 5, At least 26 people
were arrested in Sinaloa state, many of them police officers, at the
wedding party for the sister of Amado Carrillo, the reputed top drug
trafficker in Mexico. Carillo was tipped of and escaped. This prompted
the government to replace 10 police chiefs with army officers.
(SFC, 1/8/96, p.A7)(SFC, 1/20/96, p.A13)
1997 Jan 11, In Mexico a 7.3
earthquake shook the western and central areas.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A2)
1997 Jan 12, Four generals and a
colonel met with Mr. Gonzalez Quirarte, the right-hand man of drug
lord, Carillo Fuentes, to arrange protection according to later
statements made by Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo. This was the 3rd
meeting that Rebollo attended.
(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A12)(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1997 Jan 15, Mexico announced the
final $3.5 billion payment on the [Feb, 1995] $13.5 billion US loan.
(SFC, 1/16/96, p.A1)
1997 Jan 19, Riot police broke up
a hunger strike on behalf of 300 street sweepers laid off in Tabasco.
Two workers declared they would fast "to the death" had already gone
for 96 days on just water and glucose.
(SFC, 1/20/96, p.A13)
1997 Jan 22, Officials agreed to
pay back wages or give back jobs to the street sweepers of Tabasco.
(SFC, 1/24/97, p.A15)
1997 Jan 27, Police arrested
Benigno Guzman, president of the Peasant Organization of the Southern
Sierra, an anti-government alliance of poor farmers near Acapulco on
charges of belonging to the EPR guerrilla group.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A8)
1997 Jan, At a 2nd meeting between
military officials and drug smugglers, Gen’l. Juan Humberto Salinas
Altes, the army’s chief of staff, was allegedly in attendance.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1997 Feb 18, General Jesus
Guitterez Rebollo was dismissed from the armed forces and held for
charges of collaborating with Amado Carillo Fuentes, leader of the most
powerful Mexican drug cartel. He was the head of the National Institute
for Combating Drugs (INCD), which became defunct.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A1)(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Mar 10, Mexico named a new
drug czar, lawyer Mariano Federico Herran Salvatti.
(SFC, 3/11/97, p.A11)
1997 Mar 14, Five Zapatista
guerrillas were killed in a clash with the police in Chiapas. Four were
injured and 27 wounded when police dislodged hundreds who had been
squatting on a farm near San Pedro Nixtalucum.
(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A8)
1997 Mar 17, Army Brigadier Gen’l.
Alfredo Navarro Lara was arrested for trying to buy off authorities in
Baha. He offered payments of $1 million a month to Gen’l. Jose Luis
Chavez Garcia to allow cocaine to pass into the US.
(SFC, 3/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Apr 8, Raul Gutierrez,
director of the capital’s nine prisons, resigned. More resignations in
light of corruption and special privileges for imprisoned powerful drug
traffickers followed.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A14)
1997 Apr 16, Emilio Azcarraga
Milmo, former president and chairman of Grupo Televisa SA, died at age
66.
(SFC, 4/18/97, p.E2)
1997 Apr 24, Forty specially
trained soldiers of the Special Forces (GAFE) were assigned to the
int’l. airport to question and search passengers for drugs. In 1998
they and 15 civilians were withdrawn on suspicion of drug and immigrant
smuggling.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.C3)
1997 Apr 27, Two federal police
agents, Roberto Espinoza and Marco Vasquez, were found shot dead with
signs of torture in Mexico city. They had been investigating Amado
Carrillo, Mexico’s most powerful drug lord.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A12)
1997 May 6, US Pres. Clinton made
a state visit to Mexico and spent some time meeting with the leaders of
Mexico’s main opposition parties.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.c3)
1997 May 21, A half-ton of cocaine
was stolen from a police station in Sonora. Seven government employees
were later charged with the theft.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.A1)
1997 May 27, In Guerrero a
government anti-drug patrol was attacked by some 25 armed men of the
EPR. At least nine men were killed. A truce was to have lasted until
the Jul 6, parliamentary elections.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A11)
1997 May 28, Francisca Cervantes
(b.1879), the oldest lady in Mexico, died in Chiapas at age 118.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A26)
1997 Jun 20, Authorities announced
the discovery of 53 properties, 36 bank accounts and 4 aliases for Raul
Salinas.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A11)
1997 Jun 21, Fidel Velasquez
Sanchez (1900-1997), first head of the Confederation of Mexican
Workers, died in Mexico City.
(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)
1997 Jul 1, Popocatepetl erupted
33 miles Mexico City and covered the capital in ash.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 4, From Mexico it was
reported that Amado Carillo Fuentes (41), Mexico’s reputed top drug
trafficker, died following extensive plastic surgery. His operations
were centered in Juarez, across the border from El Paso. He was called
"Lord of the Skies" for using passenger jets to bring in cocaine from
Columbia. It was later reported that his death was an inside job
arranged because a massive manhunt for him had become a liability to
his cartel’s business.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.B4)(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A10)(SFC,
2/14/98, p.A9)
1997 Jul 6, In Mexico City
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, leader of the opposition Party of the
Democratic Revolution, declared victory in the race for mayor. The PRI
lost its majority in the lower house of Congress. The four opposition
parties banded together in a coalition to inaugurate the new Congress
on Aug 30.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/1/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 13, The book "Endangered
Mexico: An Environment on the Edge" by Joel Simon was reviewed.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, BR p.3)
1997 Jul 16, Benjamin Flores
Gonzalez (29), a newspaper editor of La Prensa, was gunned down in San
Luis Colorado across the border from Yuma, Ariz.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 18, Police arrested
Rolando Arroyo Palacios, aka "Long Hair," in San Luis Rio Colorado for
the murder of journalist Flores Gonzalez. He had been supposedly hired
by Ismael Guttierrez, brother of Jaime Gonzalez Guttierez, who was
arrested last month.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A11)
1997 Aug 4, It was reported that
the Lacandon Jungle rain forest was 40% destroyed from its original 4
million acres. Poor peasants were clearing the jungle by fire to
provide for agricultural needs.
(SFC, 8/4/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 4, Gunmen killed 6 people
in the Max Fim restaurant in Ciudad Juarez.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 7, In Mexico City Jose
Paoletti Moreda and his son Renato were arrested on charges of leading
an operation that smuggled deaf people into the US and forced them to
work under virtual slavery conditions.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.A3)
1997 cAug 15, The Saba family’s
22% stake in Television Azteca SA was sold through an IPO. The family
led by Isaac Saba Raffoul was reputed to have a cash equivalent of a
billion dollars with the sale.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 16, Alejandro Ortiz
Martinez, brother of the finance minister Guillermo Ortiz, was shot and
killed by three gunmen in Mexico City.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.A21)
1997 Aug 28, The government’s
National Human Rights Commission recommended that the Durango State
Attorney Gen’l. Francisco Arroyo be fired for negligence. This was in
response to the suicide 2 months ago of 16-year-old Yessica Diaz
Cazares who had been gang raped some 5 months ago. Yessica had spent 3
months recounting her story to officials under threats from her
attackers and pressure from authorities to drop the charges.
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 8, The Fox and Jaguar
SWAT police in Mexico City engaged in a gun fight with a neighborhood
gang. One young man and one police officer died. Police seized 6 youths
and 3 were found dead the next day with gunshot wounds to the head.
Three more were found dead on Sep 29. On Oct 3 nineteen members of the
police force were arraigned for the executions. Three ranking officers
were later arrested due to contradictory and misleading statements.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A8)(SFC,11/19/97, p.A14)
1997 Sep 12, Tens of thousands
rallied in the central square of Mexico City in support of the
Zapatista movement.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep 13, A national Zapatista
civilian movement was inaugurated.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Sep, In Chiapas gunmen
demanded a "war tax" of $1.25 from villagers every couple weeks and
threatened them if they refused. It was reported that the PRI had
distributed guns to allies in villages around Puebla.
(SFC,12/30/97, p.B1)
1997 Oct 6, Workers at the Han
Young de Mexico factory in Tijuana voted to be represented by an
independent union, the Metal, Steel and Allied workers Union of the
Authenticated labor Front (FAT). It was the first time that an existing
company-dominated union was ousted in the maquiladora industry. After
weeks the results were still not formalized and 4 workers who voted for
the union were fired. On Nov 10 the Tijuana Labor Board invalidated the
vote claiming the union was not nationally registered. [see Dec 14]
(SFC, 10/8/97, p.A8)(SFC,10/30/97,
p.A14)(SFC,11/15/97, p.A13)
1997 Oct 7, It was reported that
at least 100 people were reported as disappeared in the state of
Chihuahua, mostly around Ciudad Juarez, the base for Mexico’s largest
drug cartel.
(SFC, 10/7/97, p.A15)
1997 Oct 9, Hurricane Pauline
swept through Acapulco and left at least 124 dead.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 24, Luis Aguilar, singer
and actor nicknamed "Wild Rooster," died at age 79. He had
appeared in 155 motion pictures over 5 decades.
(LAT, 9/29/97, p.A18)
1997 Nov 4, A convoy with Bishop
Samuel Ruiz was attacked in Crucero in northern Chiapas. Three church
workers were wounded. The Peace and Justice group, associated with the
PRI, was thought to be responsible.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.C6)
1997 Nov 2, Three bodies were
found stuffed in oil drums filled with concrete along a southern Mexico
highway. [see Nov 5]
(SFC,11/8/97, p.A11)
1997 Nov 5, In Mexico relatives
identified the body of Dr. Jaime Godoy Singh (Zinc)(37). He and 2
others were found Nov 2 stuffed into oil drums partly filled with
cement. He was the doctor suspected of operating on Amado Carillo
Fuentes who died under surgery July 4. Dr. Ricardo Reyes was the other
doctor. A third doctor, Carlos Humberto Avila Meljem, was thought to be
the third.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.C3)(SFC,11/8/97, p.A11)
1997 Nov 6, Prosecutors announced
that 2 of the 3 doctors found dead in oil drums were being charged with
the murder of druglord Amado Carillo Fuentes. The 3rd doctor was
charged last month.
(SFC,11/8/97, p.A11)
1997 Nov 9, Hurricane Rick hit the
coast of Oaxaca state.
(SFEC,11/10/97, p.A12)
1997 Nov 16, It was reported that
the maquiladora plants along the US border have for years regularly
demanded female employees to provide periodic evidence of non-pregnancy
in order to avoid mandated 3-month maternity leave.
(SFEC,11/16/97, p.A26)
1997 Nov 19, In Mexico members of
the elite Zorro police unit protested the arrest of their comrades for
the Sep 8 killing of 6 youths. They ended their standoff after 14 hours
and allowed the questioning of 14 officers.
(SFC,11/20/97, p.B2)(SFC,11/21/97, p.D6)
1997 Nov 19, Edmundo Tasinnari,
head of the Mexico City anti-kidnapping unit, and Humberto Salgado, his
deputy, were kidnapped with their driver. The driver was later found
beaten and wandering in a daze.
(SFC,11/26/97, p.C5)
1997 Nov 22, Gen’l. Mauro Enrique
Tello was fired and arrested for his suspected role in the Sep 8
killing of 6 youths. It was reported that the attack was ordered by
Col. Jesus Alonso after thieves robbed him at gunpoint of a Rolex watch
and some money weeks earlier.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.A25)
1997 Nov 25, Two high-ranking army
officers were charged with murder in the Sep 8 killings. It was the
first time in modern Mexican history that a civilian court had brought
charges against an army officer.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A1)
1997 Nov 28, The new National
Workers Union (UNT) was inaugurated in Mexico City. It will compete
with the 4-million member Congress of Mexican Labor (CTM), considered a
pliant ally of the PRI.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A14)
1997 Nov 29, Some 25,000
demonstrators marched in Mexico City to protest crime, violence and
police corruption.
(WSJ, 12/1/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 5, In Mexico City Mayor
Cuautemoc Cardenas (63) was sworn into office. He named Jesus Carrola
as head of the judicial police.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A8)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C3)
1997 Dec 8, Mexico agreed with the
European Union to negotiate a trade pact.
(SFC,12/9/97, p.A13)
1997 Dec 9, The US began an
investigation of Grupo Hank, a large financial empire controlled by
Carlos Hank Gonzales, a former mayor of Mexico City, and his sons
Carlos Hank Rhon and Jorge Hank Rhon. A 1999 report concluded that the
family was heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering.
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.A1,14)
1997 Dec 10, Jesus Carrola, the
new judicial police chief of Mexico City, stepped down amid allegations
of links to torture and drug traffickers.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.C3)
1997 Dec 10, Vincent Carroza, a
hotel manager in Acapulco from New Jersey, was kidnapped by 9 gunmen
dressed as federal police agents. His was the 104th kidnapping reported
in the state in 20 months. He was released unharmed after 8 days.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A18)(SFC,12/18/97, p.C12)
1997 Dec 14, It was reported that
the Korean owners of the Han Young plant in Tijuana have agreed to cut
ties with the government union and recognize the independent Unidad
Obrera (Worker Unity) that was elected on Oct 6.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A22)
1997 Dec 14, The 500-seat Chamber
of Deputies approved Pres. Zedillo’s $108.9 billion budget for
1988. The secret budget was reduced to $6.25 million.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.B1)
1997 Dec 15, A gang of armed
masked men raided several homes and seized some 20 teenagers and young
adults. Several were tortured and Salvador Jimenez Lopez (25) was found
dead a week later. On Jan 7 authorities arrested 28 officers and
soldiers who were believed to be responsible. In Dec 1998 11 state
officials were barred from public office for 10 years for failing to
stop the massacre.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.B10)(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C2)
1997 Dec 15, Peter Zarate (40), an
executive for New York-based Cushman and Wakefield, was shot and killed
in a taxi robbery in a wealthy Mexico City neighborhood.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A12)
1997 Dec 17, A young man from an
Indian hamlet near Acteal was killed in an ambush by masked gunmen.
Antonio Vazquez Secum summoned a band of gunmen and dispatched them to
Acteal for revenge.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A15)
1997 Dec 22, In Mexico some 70
pro-government gunmen of the Peace and Justice paramilitary group
killed 45 people, including 21 women 9 men and 15 children, in the
Tzoztzil Indian village of Acteal. Opposition groups called for the
resignation of Gov. Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, who had repeatedly denied
the existence of paramilitary groups in the state. In 1998 12 officials
of the state attorney general’s office were arrested for failing to
stop the massacre. The government paid compensation to families of the
victims and to the wounded. In 1999 20 government supporters were
sentenced to 35 years in prison and 81 people were still scheduled for
trial. In Dec 2007 authorities re-arrested Antonio Santiz, the alleged
mastermind of the massacre. Santiz had been arrested for his alleged
involvement in 2000, but a judge threw out the charges in 2001, ruling
there wasn't enough evidence. In 2008 a Mexican judge sentenced
brothers Antonio and Mariano Pucuj to 26 years in prison for their
participation in the massacre. In 2009 Mexico's Supreme Court ordered
freedom for 20 men convicted in the Acteal massacre and new trials for
six more, ruling that prosecutors used illegally obtained evidence.
(SFC,12/24/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/26/97, p.B7)(SFC,
7/4/98, p.A9)(SFC, 7/20/99, p.A11)(AP, 12/23/07)(AP, 2/27/08)(AP,
8/12/09)
1997 Dec 26, Sixteen Maya Indians
were charged with first-degree murder in the Dec 22 massacre.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 27, Authorities charged
Jacinto Arias Cruz, the mayor of Chenalho, and 23 supporters with
murder of the villagers in Acteal.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A13)
1997 A Health Ministry Study found
that the use of cocaine had quadrupled among Mexico City teens in 6
years. Marijuana use had doubled.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A12)
1997 Gov. Vincente Fox of
Guanajuato recommended that emigrants form partnerships to start local
business. He offered that the state would pay to train workers and
managers. This gave birth to "Mi Comunidad" and the establishment of
new sewing factories.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.A3)
1997 Mexico implemented the
Progresa social program. In 2000 it covered some 2 million rural
families.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.37)(http://tinyurl.com/d7tef)
1997 Ricardo Salinas Pliego
blocked NBC from taking a 10% stake in Mexico’s TV Azteca as part of a
previous deal to help TV Azteca learn the TV business.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A11)
1997 In Mexico Andres Granier
began serving as mayor of Villahermosa, capital of Tabasco state. He
served to 2000. In 2006 Granier won elections for Tabasco state
governor as a PRI candidate.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.42)
1997 Mexico’s national census
counted 93.7 million people.
(SFC, 7/9/99, p.A15)
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