Monday, May 12, 2008
Mexican Border State Governor Faces Media Allegations of Wrongdoing, Excessiveness
Frontera NorteSur
Entering the final stages of his six-year term, the governor of the northern Mexican border State of Sonora, Eduardo
Bours Castelo, finds himself at the center of multiple controversies. In 2008 he's come under fire for dispatching state police
to break a legal miner's strike, for cracking down on environmentalists opposed to the razing of the Villa de Seris Park in
the state capital of Hermosillo, and for contracting a long-term public debt with a private bank.
What's more, Bours is fending off accusations that family members and associates are connected to illegal drug
trafficking. In a major story published late last month, the Mexico City newsweekly Proceso
outlined alleged ties between the large Bours clan and the Beltran Leyva branch of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
According
to Proceso, the home of Gov. Bours' chief bodyguard, Lazaro Gonzalez Cruz, was
searched by agents of the Office of the Federal Attorney General (PGR) last fall. The media outlet reported that Gonzalez
was suspected of having ties to an operator for the Beltran Leyvas called "El Mochombo," who was arrested in January of this
year. The PGR agents found no incriminating evidence in Gonzalez's home, and Gov. Bours publicly protested the conduct
of federal officers in Sonora. He even suggested that agents leave the state. "You can't enter a house in this way, just because
of an alleged anonymous call," Gov. Bours said.
A second connection casting suspicion on the Bours has to do with the
family's Bachoco poultry and egg company. In less than two years, Mexican law enforcement officials have reportedly confiscated
cocaine, marijuana and other illegal substances from 24 Bachoco trucks in Baja California and Sonora. The Bours-owned
company is the largest distributor of chickens in Mexico. Proceso also indirectly
quoted unidentified chicken producers who said Bachoco uses ephedrine, a precursor chemical for manufacturing methampetamines,
to keep chickens awake and ravenously eating until the animals are dispatched to the butcher's knife and shipped off to the
supermarket.
In response to the Proceso stories, Gov. Bours flatly denied
any involvement with drug trafficking. Vowing to file a civil lawsuit against the magazine for "moral damages," he added
that he would ask the PGR to investigate issues brought up in the stories. In a Sonora press conference, the border governor
challenged details of the Proceso reports and promised to provide a point-by-point
rebuttal, which he hasn't done so far.
"There is nothing that involves me or my family with drug trafficking in any
way," Gov. Bours said. "Besides, there is a series of lies in the article." Gov. Bours blamed Sonora's anti-organized crime
efforts for provoking slanderous attacks against the state's leader and his family. He said old school, corrupt politicians
were behind a smear campaign.
In a separate interview with Televisa's Carlos Loret de Mola, Gov. Bours said that Senator
Manlio Fabio Beltrones, a member of Bour's own Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), could have a hand in the
negative publicity. Admitting to Loret de Mola that four Bachoco trucks had been seized with drug shipments, Gov. Bours
added that the company's transportation fleet is outsourced.
"The transportation is subcontracted, Bachoco does not
do it," he said, "and unfortunately organized crime has operated with different trucks. This is not the only company. Consequently,
we changed the subcontractor."
The Proceso stories were not seen by many
readers in Sonora. Proceso reported that at least 1,300 copies of the magazine
were confiscated from vendors before they could hit the newsstands. The newsweekly did not specifically identify who confiscated
its magazines, but it stated the action was undertaken "presumably by orders of the governor."
Riveted by narco-violence
such as last year's bloody battles that left 24 dead in and around the mining town of Cananea, Sonora remains dangerous turf
for journalists. In the most recent incidents, an announcer for Radio Mujer in Ciudad Obregon, Laura Elena Ochoa Avila, was
kidnapped April 30 and then released unharmed near a cemetery 24 hours later. A week earlier, two reporters for La Verdad
newspaper in Caborca were beaten by men with bats. Allegedly carrying out a paid assault on behalf of an immigrant smuggler,
two suspects were arrested in the Caborca attack.
In recent years the Sonora press has become more muted about powerful
individuals and business interests operating in the northern Mexican border state of approximately two million people. But
the Proceso stories raised prickly questions about the expansion of the Bours family's
business empire in Sonora. Proceso reported that members of the Bours family dominate
or have a large hand in the fishing, aquaculture, real estate, transportation, fertilizer, mining and tourism industries.
An
important enterprise linked to the influential Sonora family is the Ocean Garden seafood company, formerly a fishermen's cooperative
before it went into bankruptcy and was taken over by the Mexican government. With the backing of Mexico City, Ocean Garden
financed a flotilla of 982 boats in the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of fishermen and other workers earned
a living from Ocean Garden's far-flung business. Kept alive with loans from Bank of America, Ocean Garden was peddled off
to Bours family members by the administration of former President Vicente Fox in 2005. Nowadays, the company has ambitious
plans to export shrimp to the US and Asian markets, according to Proceso.
Tourism
is another key sector where the Bours name is established. Family members own the Alma airline company, and some are involved
in the development boom in the coastal resort of Puerto Peņasco, a place often called "Arizona's Beach" in the United States.
If official plans move forward, the small but growing vacation destination might soon become landlocked New Mexico's piece
of paradise on the Sea of Cortez as well. Early this month, the Sonora and New Mexico state governments signed an agreement
to explore the possibility of a direct flight between Puerto Peņasco and New Mexico.
In the first three months of 2008,
Puerto Peņasco captured 23 percent of all new foreign investment in the Mexican tourist industry, or about US$2 billion. According
to Mexico's National Tourism Ministry, Puerto Peņasco even beat out Cancun in the scramble for foreign dollars that hailed
principally from the United States and Spain. Considering the economic morass overtaking the United States, the investment
spike is an impressive one.
Rising steadily within the PRI and national political circles since he served as an advisor
to former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari during the negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1991,
Gov. Bours is mentioned more and more as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. Before he leaves office next year, Gov.
Bours is determined to literally leave behind his stamp on the arid Sonoran landscape.
On a visit to Sonora this month,
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said he wanted to know how Bours was carrying out a massive, new infrastructure development
program of 160 projects called the Sonora Project Plan. "I want to do the same thing," Governor Richardson was quoted as saying.
The answer to the New Mexico Democrat's question: borrow US$400 million from a private bank and enter into a 30-year payback
agreement.
The Sonora Project Plan will be heavily financed by a US$400 million loan from Banorte, the Monterrey-based
bank launched by Roberto "Tortilla King" Gonzalez Barrera, a billionaire who became famous as the chief of the giant Grupo
Maseca corn flour and tortilla company. Under the terms of the agreement, Sonora's taxpayers will pay off the loan over three
decades. Consisting of everything from new roads to tourist facilities, the total cost of the Sonora Project Plan is expected
to reach at least US$690 million. In addition to the Banorte loan, other monies from both the public and private sectors will
be tapped. According to Luis Nuņez Noriega, president of the Sonora economists' association, the Sonora Project Plan will
elevate the total state debt to nearly US$1 billion.
Gov. Bours' mega-development faces a constitutional challenge
pursued by members of the center-right National Action Party (PAN) in the Mexican Supreme Court. "We are now the super leader
in debt at the national level," said Jose Enriquez Reina Lizarraga, president of the Sonora PAN. "We are in favor of public
works, but not going into debt."
On the other hand, Gov. Bours justifies his mammoth public works project as an absolute necessity for the state's
social and economic future. The successful completion of the project, he insists, will transform Sonora into a world-class
entity. Despite the pending court case, Bours recently announced the project will be speeded up to counter the soaring costs
of construction materials, as well as to help shield Sonora from the effects of the US economic downturn. Firmly enmeshed
in the border and larger global economy, Sonora is heavily dependent on commercial relationships with the United States.
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Sources:
Expreso.com.mx (Hermosillo), May 8, 2008. El Imparcial, May 8, 2008. Articles by Miriam Rodriguez and Hector Padilla. La Jornada,
May 2 and 8, 2008. Articles by Ulises Gutierrez Ruelas. Cimacnoticias.com, May 1, 2008. Article by Silvia Nunez Esquer. Nuevo
Dia (Nogales), April 30, 2008. Critica.com.mx, April 29 and May 10, 2008. Articles by Rosa Angelica Fimbres and editorial
staff. Proceso/Apro, April 28, 2008. Articles by Ricardo Ravelo and editorial staff.
El Universal, April 23, 2008. Article by Marcelo Beyliss.
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Frontera NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
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Reprinted with authorization
from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source.
Translation FNS
