Juan Carlos Antonio Mercado, alias “El Chato,” was detained in the municipality of Tala, around 40 kilometers west of Guadalajara, and presented before the media on Saturday.
He is one of six suspects arrested in relation to the massacre and the kidnapping of another 14 people who were destined to be slain. Of these, 12 were rescued alive last week and two were found shot dead in the municipality of El Arenal.
“El Chato”, 27, told the media that he belonged to the Milenio Cartel but also worked for a member of Los Zetas, known only as “Fernando” or the “R-2.” The suspect admitted responsibility for the random kidnapping of 14 people being held at a safe house in Ahuisculco, Tala.
He said they originally planned to kill the victims and leave the bodies beneath Guadalajara’s Millennium Arches on May 10 to “cause terror” among the population. Members of Milenio and Los Zetas dumped 26 corpses in the same location last November, but “El Chato” said the heavy presence of state police prevented them from fulfilling their plan.
Twelve of those being held were freed after one escaped and alerted authorities. No arrests were made at the time but four other suspects were detained in Tala on Friday.
The Jalisco Public Security Agency (SSP) said the suspects were acting on the orders of “El Chato” and were linked to the kidnapping of those killed and dumped beside the Chapala highway on Wednesday, May 9. Several weapons and 30 kilograms of marijuana were uncovered in the raid.
The SSP discovered another safe house in San Nicolas de Ibarra, Chapala, last Thursday night, where they seized an arsenal of 10 assault rifles AR-15 and AK-47s, four pistols and five grenades allegedly belonging to the same criminal group.
On May 8, the eve of the massacre, state police arrested Laura Rosales Sanchez, 25, who was identified by the kidnap victims who had been held in the Ahuisculco safe house. Rosales later told the authorities that last week’s slaughter was carried out in revenge for the killing of 23 suspected Zetas in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas on May 4, which she attributed to the Sinaloa Cartel.
Headed by billionaire fugitive Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the Sinaloa Cartel is locked in a bloody turf war with Los Zetas across several Mexican states. The Sinaloa Cartel controls Jalisco in alliance with the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, but recent insurgencies by Los Zetas have led to increased bloodshed in areas such as Lake Chapala.
Chapala residents march for peace
Around 500 Chapala residents led a peace march on Sunday night in response to the dumping of 18 disfigured bodies in Ixtlahuacan last Wednesday.
Many of the victims were upstanding members of the Chapala community and several of their family members took part in the march.
Demanding a return to peace and tranquility, the demonstrators amassed at the charreria arena at 8 p.m. and marched in silence for one kilometer to the Malecon.
They were all clad in white, with many carrying white flowers and torches, while others brought umbrellas to provide shelter from the evening rain.
Gloves come off in presidential debate
The man most likely to be Mexico’s next president may have spoken before the nation and engaged with his critics, but he is still a complete enigma. The knives were out from all sides for frontrunner Enrique Peña Nieto, but he remains both opaque and on the verge of victory.
As the major candidates crossed swords, it was lesser known citizens’ candidate Gabriel Quadri who stole the limelight, topping most opinion polls for his composed and intelligent performance.
Unfortunately for Quadri this is unlikely to translate to a major share of the vote, due to the low profile of his New Alliance Party (PANAL) and its close ties to Elba Esther Gordillo, the controversial and largely unpopular teachers union leader.
The two-hour debate was moderated by journalist Guadalupe Juarez, whose awkward smile betrayed the simmering tension between the country’s political giants.
Each candidate was given questions on topics such as the economy, security, energy and education, with their rivals then allowed a chance to respond. Although rigidly controlled, the format allowed for greater discussion than last week’s tepid debate between Jalisco’s gubernatorial contenders.
Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) began the debate by slamming the last two administrations of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), which oversaw Mexico’s “worst economic performance in 80 years,” a rise in poverty and a huge wave of drug-related violence.
Peña Nieto avoided any major slip-ups, offering little of substance but spending most of his allocated time fending off attacks from Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Josefina Vazquez Mota.
“They seem to have come to an agreement,” said the PRI candidate. “They’re coming with knives sharpened.”
Although ubiquitous on billboards, television and radio spots, Peña Nieto has limited his exposure to the press or rival candidates to a bare minimum, having made several high-profile gaffes late last year.
He enjoys a healthy lead in the polls, which also means he had the most to lose by appearing in the debates. Despite his opponents’ constant digs, Peña Nieto avoided any fatal damage to his carefully sculpted public image.
His biggest shortcoming was a failure to explain any policies beyond making vague generalizations. He offered grand aims but very few details of how he proposes to change Mexico.
In a performance sure to have solidified her support base, Vazquez Mota of the incumbent PAN mixed policy proposals with sustained attacks on Peña Nieto’s record as governor of the State of Mexico.
Vazquez Mota said the state had one of the country’s worst economic records under his administration and, brandishing a magazine article, accused Peña Nieto of lying about reducing homicide figures during his term in office.
“There are two ways of lying: one, not telling the truth and the other, making up statistics,” she said. There was much bickering over statistics throughout the debate, with Peña Nieto simply claiming her critiques were based upon false figures.
In one of the night’s most bitter exchanges, Vazquez Mota criticised the abmornally high femicide rate in the State of Mexico under Peña Nieto, and the lack of clarity surrounding the death of four-year-old Paulette Farah (a disabled girl from a wealthy family in Toluca whose disappearance in 2010 sparked an outpouring of sympathy across Mexico. She was found in her own bedroom days later, dead by asphyxiation, with her mother prime suspect, but the case was never solved). This prompted the former governor to accuse her of using the death of a little girl to revive her campaign.
Vying to become Mexico’s first female president, Vazquez Mota emphasized her role as the only woman in the race, while seeking to distance herself from President Felipe Calderon’s current government.
“I want to be president because I have the sensitivity, as a woman, to listen,” she said, repeatedly proclaiming herself as “different.”
Lopez Obrador, who leads a leftist coalition of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Labor Party (PT) and Citizen’s Movement, concentrated even less on the topics at hand and even more on savaging Peña Nieto.
The runner-up by a razor-thin margin in 2006’s controversial election, Lopez Obrador upset many moderate voters with months of disruptive protests in Mexico City, proclaiming himself the “legitimate president” in the aftermath of the disputed vote count.
The former mayor of Mexico City had sought to tone down his radical image and cultivate a more business-friendly persona this time around, but he showed his true colours in reverting to a more confrontational approach during the debate.
While many of his accusations were valid, Lopez Obrador ran the risk of alienating voters by banging the same old drum and failing to engage with the issues raised in the debate. He was more concerned with exposing Peña Nieto as a puppet of the authoritarian PRI elite who ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000.
“Why do the people who really control the country want Pena Nieto to be president?” he asked. “The answer is obvious… they want to continue with their policies of pillage.”
Lopez Obrador produced photographs of Peña Nieto with Arturo Montiel, a former governor of the state of Mexico whose whose career ended in accusations of corruption; and another with former President Carlos Salinas, whose rule was also dogged by charges of corruption and cronyism. The implication was clear: Peña Nieto may look young and handsome, but he is no different from the old PRI.
“This dominant group has privatized the government,” Lopez Obrador said. “Do you think things will get better if the PRI comes back? Let’s take a totally new path.”
The only candidate to stay out of the fray was Quadri, who earned newfound respect with direct answers and detailed policy proposals that seemed beyond his rivals’ capacities.
Representing a young and little-known party, Quadri lags way behind his opponents in the polls. With little need to engage in mudslinging, he was free to concentrate on the bigger picture and the problems facing Mexico.
More moderate and with less political baggage than Lopez Obrador, Quadri painted himself as a fresh alternative to the “politicians of old,” telling the audience, “you should vote with courage and freedom, the politicians must know that without you they are nothing. You have the opportunity to elect an honest and transparent citizen.”
Exasperated by the absence of meaningful proposals or intellectual debate from his opponents, Quadri added a hint of humor to the proceedings with the wry comment, “I’m glad everyone is copying my policies, this means we are making progress.”
Hitting the nail on the head, he added, “I wish my political colleagues would tell us how they plan to do things, because they all promise a lot of nice things … but they do not explain to us how they will achieve them.”
The sense of public apathy was compounded by the fact that several major TV networks opted to show a soccer match instead of the debate. Lopez Obrador alleged that Mexico’s powerful media bosses did not want to broadcast the debates to prevent voters from discovering “who Peña Nieto really is.”
With almost two months to go, it is unlikely the debate will have a major impact on the July 1 election, although a second debate scheduled for June 10 in Guadalajara could prove more decisive.
Busty ‘bunny’ kicks up post-debate fuss
In what could be taken as damning evidence of the audience’s lack of interest in their candidates, one of the most discussed moments of the presidential debate – especially on on social networking sites Twitter and Facebook – was the fleeting (19-second) appearance of former Playboy bunny Julia Orayen, who distributed cards determining the order in which candidates would speak. Her not-so-demure attire raised many eyebrows and prompted a subsequent apology from the Federal Electoral Institute.
Dylan and McCartney rock Guadalajara
Aged 70, Dylan has come a long way from being infamously heckled as “Judas” for switching from acoustic to electric guitar, with the latest leg of his “Never Ending Tour” bringing him to the Telmex Auditorium on Wednesday night.
A unique counter-cultural icon, Dylan has taken on many guises throughout his career of over 50 years: those of folk singer, protest artist, rock star, New York hipster and born-again Christian standing out most prominently.
Since his 1962 debut, Dylan, has released 34 studio albums, 58 singles, 13 live albums and a host of official bootlegs and compilations. His prolific songwriting is surpassed only by his tireless commitment to a relentless touring schedule that would leave artists half his age collapsed from exhaustion in a rehab clinic.
Appropriately dubbed the “Never Ending Tour,” his current jaunt began the same year this writer was born. It has seen Dylan and his band average around 100 shows a year for the past two decades.
The latest of those showcased Dylan’s talent for reinvention with a 90-minute set split between classic and newer material.
Presumably to stave off boredom after so many years on the road – or perhaps through sheer perversity – Dylan now renders many of his oldest songs almost unrecognizable. Backed by a tight five-piece band playing bluesy new arrangements, he completely changed the rhythm of his vocals, often leaving the audience unsure of what song they were even listening to for the first minute or so.
This meant there were few mass singalongs but it must leave Dylan more artistically fulfilled; he can hardly be accused of pandering to nostalgia by simply wheeling out the big hits.
Switching between harmonica, keys and guitar throughout, the croaky voiced singer-songwriter led his southern blues band through a reworked “Tangled Up in Blue” and a rocking “Highway 61 Revisited.”
A more faithful rendition of “Ballad of a Thin Man” drew great applause, before an epic “Like a Rolling Stone” brought the entire audience to its feet. The electric final song, “All Along the Watchtower,” was closer in style to Jimi Hendrix’s famous cover than the acoustic original. Despite the crowd’s calls for more, there was no encore.
Dylan was preceded in Guadalajara by one of his most famous contemporaries, Sir Paul McCartney, who played the Omnilife Stadium on Saturday night.
The 69-year-old former Beatle knows how to give his fans exactly what they want and drew rave reviews for his more straight-up, hit-laden performance. McCartney ran through an incredible 42 songs in a mammoth three-hour show before an ecstatic audience of 34,000.
Savoring his first appearance on Tapatio soil, McCartney wished the audience a happy Cinco de Mayo and was joined by a troupe of local mariachis on “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” one of many Beatles classics aired on the night.
He even learned a few Spanish phrases for the occasion, declaring, “¡Hola Guadalajara! ¡Qué onda guanatos! Esta noche voy a tratar de hablar un poquito de español, pero más inglés. Estamos muy contentos de estar por primera vez aqui,” before launching into the early Beatles hit “All My Loving.”
The Tequila Files 