Posted on 11/11/2002 5:31:29 AM PST by FryingPan101
The border does not provide an easy dividing line for those who have relatives on both sides. The saying is you can choose your friends but not your relatives, but the border presents its own complications.
On Sept. 12, two El Paso FBI agents were seriously injured during a law-enforcement operation at Sunland Park-Anapra that targeted suspected train robbers.
Juárez politicians, activists and others made a big stink over allegations that FBI agents either stepped onto Mexican soil to arrest suspects, or Juárez city police and Mexican federal customs officers yanked suspects from their Anapra homes and turned them over to U.S. federal agents.
One of the injured FBI agents is related to Francisco "Pancho" Barrio, the first Chihuahua state governor from the National Action Party. He now serves as President Vicente Fox's anticorruption czar. Fox and the Juárez mayor also belong to PAN.
Border relations
A couple of years ago, a Mexican federal document made its way to El Paso's federal court during an extradition case. Among other things, it said a former jeweler and accountant of the Carrillo Fuentes cartel had alleged that former Gov. Barrio took protection money from Amado Carrillo Fuentes. The cooperating witness was assassinated a short time later in Mexico City.
Barrio, through full-page ads in Juárez newspapers, denied the allegations. Fox stood by Barrio, and defended his reputation. Local people who know the anticorruption czar swear he's incapable of such misdeeds. His defenders believe he was extremely naive and didn't know what was going on, which is possible.
Still, someone collected all that money in the governor's name.
According to another federal investigation, officials who worked in the Barrio administration during the mid-1990s allegedly were involved in the disappearances of young women who later turned up dead. Again, Barrio didn't know.
A small circle
Eduardo Gonzalez Quirarte, an alleged top capo in the Carrillo Fuentes cartel, attended El Paso's Jefferson High School. U.S. officials allege he's in charge of delivering big payoffs to high-level officials. Although U.S. federal agents claim he's a most-wanted fugitive, a former school chum of Gonzalez bumped into him last week -- in El Paso.
Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the new cartel leader, had a daughter here. The mother, feeling U.S. federal agents were snooping on them too much, recently left their West El Paso home and took off for Mexico.
Francisco "Venado" Estrada, a Chihuahua state fugitive who was arrested over the weekend in Durango state, was charged with killing a state policeman and escaping from prison. He had been hiding out temporarily with cousins in El Paso.
Some border families must have the most interesting dinner conversations.
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