The Black Hand of Uncle Sam

Tomás Yarrington, a friend of [former President George W.] Bush, left the Tamaulipas government in 2004. That same year Enrique Peña was a local representative in the Congress of the State of Mexico. Eight years later, during a month of presidential elections in which Peña is leading in all the known surveys, the U.S. Department of Justice has decided that it is time to accuse Yarrington of laundering money with criminal groups that operate in the state he governed. Is it an unfortunate coincidence, or is the U.S. government making its presence known in the Mexican campaign?

The pertinent question after the accusations of the Drug Enforcement Administration against the generals, and the case against Yarrington, is: What does Uncle Sam desire? Department of State analysts, including Ambassador Tony Wayne, believe, as everyone believes, that the possibility of National Action Party (PAN) candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota winning the June 1 election is more remote each day. So, the system of collaboration between the governments of Mexico and the United States in the fight against organized criminal gangs will not be the same, and that has the U.S. annoyed.

The same PAN members floated the idea to Washington that if the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won the election, the PRI would not combat drug trafficking gangs. The PAN members sought, and obtained, a reaction from the White House. Was doing so an act of treason against the homeland or an unhealthy political appetite? I say treason against the homeland because they decided to forfeit sovereignty in exchange for maintaining the political position of the groups in power. The equation was simple: If you help us against the PRI, then you can involve yourself in any matter of security. Would they have even blushed as they did this?

For various reasons the PRI and its presidential candidate have conserved an important advantage while the champion of the PAN party is in third place and is still declining. We all, including the U.S. government, face a dilemma: Peña or Andrés Manuel López Obrador. There is no one else. It seems to me that the North American government believes it will be Peña, but it is pressuring him to arrive at an explicit agreement before Election Day: that the United States maintains, or even increases, its presence in Mexico under the pretext of the war on drugs.

It has already been said, but it bears repeating: In reality drugs are not — and are not even close to — the total preoccupation of the Americans. They want to increase their internal security by designing and supervising the security apparatus of the Mexican state, and of all the other nations in the area. First it’s Mexico, followed by the Caribbean and Central America, and later the armies of the southern cone. The message for members of the PRI from Uncle Sam is clear: We have the means to derail you. “Do things as we want them done.”

This is not to say that Yarrington should be protected, but the case against him has been handled more as a matter of propaganda than a strictly legal consideration. Until now, for example, we are familiar with the accusations, but not with the petitions for arrest. The message was received clearly. It reached whom it needed to reach. Neither the PRI nor Peña owe Yarrington anything. They do not have to defend him, and the logical move is to categorically separate themselves from him. Josefina took advantage of this opportunity and scored a goal. The Americans gave her and López Obrador a box of chocolate that they will eat from now to Election Day, or even later.

Will the black hand of Uncle Sam overturn the polls? I would say no, but it is now clear that Peña and his group must push the boundaries of his campaign, and immediately send a representative to Washington to try to deactivate the missiles of the North American government. If Josefina cannot do so, and the Americans fulfill their desire of making the residents of Mexico City stumble, who do the Americans want in Los Pinos [the presidential office of Mexico]? The answer is that they want López Obrador. Would it be to start the final assault, by taking advantage of the Tabasco native’s madness? Only that can be why.