Mexican Editor Takes to Fortress After Cartel Attack
March 14, 1998 - 0:0
TIJUANA, Mexico Resting on a cane, journalist Jesus Blancornelas took communion in the living room of his fortress home, protected from the world he reports on by 16 soldiers and police and a brand new seven-foot (two- meter) -high brick wall. Still frail after killers in the pay of Mexico's baddest and boldest druglords riddled his car with 100 bullets as he was driven to work in this border city three months ago, he prayed with his family and bade the Catholic priest goodbye.
I can't go to mass with all my police because people would be afraid. So a priest has to come here and give me communion, the 61-year-old journalist explained, almost apologetically, in an interview with Reuters. A lot has changed in the life of the crusading anti-drugs editor of investigative weekly Zeta since 9:35 a.m. on November 27, when about 10 thugs wielding AK-47s and shotguns and working for the notorious Arellano Felix brothers tried to kill him.
His bodyguard, Luis Lauro Valero Elizaldi, died with 30 bullet wounds defending his boss as their Ford Explorer was ambushed a few blocks from the Zeta offices. Blancornelas himself probably survived only because the suspected leader of the execution squad, Israeli-trained hitman David Barron Corona, alias CH, died after being struck in the eye by a ricocheting shell fired by one of his own men.
I still don't know how I got out of there alive, Blancornelas said, sitting in the living room of his family home in Tijuana, which has been turned into a kind of fortress. A brick wall built while he was in a hospital was visible behind him and three carloads of guards dressed in black blocked the street outside. Drug Wars Terror in Mexico The scene was reminiscent of Colombia's 1980s drug wars, when Medellin cocaine king Pablo Escobar took on the government in a terror campaign that included the assassination of a newspaper editor and the bombing of a daily paper's offices.
But it was actually taking place half an hour from the United States, on the border with California near San Diego. Blancornelas said he was certain that CH's companions, like their leader, came from Logan, a San Diego suburb. Barron was also wanted for the 1993 killing at Guadalajara airport of Mexico's Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Posadas Ocampo. Zeta has won praise for its hard-hitting coverage.
Tijuana, its base, is also the home turf of Ramon, Benjamin and Javier Arellano Felix, each with million-dollar rewards on their heads and responsible for a sizable chunk of the flow of cocaine into the United States. Waving a bullet-scarred hand, Blancornelas said he believed barron and his bosses got pissed off by Zeta's reports. Shortly before the murder attempt, the weekly named Barron for the first time and identified him as one of the assassins of two Mexican anti-drugs agents.
It said he was trained in Israel and that he and his fellow killers wore tape over their finger tips to obscure any prints. Zeta also published a list of Arellano Felix organization members based on testimony from the cartel's financial wizard Arturo El Kity Paez, who was arrested in early November. Drug Lord Brothers Don't Appreciate Publicity They didn't like what was being put on paper.
These brothers really don't appreciate the publicity and they have no qualms about hitting reporters, said a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official, asking not to be identified. Blancornelas said he believed the attack marked a change in relations between the media and Mexican traffickers. Unlike some of their more ruthless Colombian counterparts, Mexican smugglers had acknowledged previously that druglords are news and journalists must cover the news.
I can only hope they have understood that it is more difficult to kill a journalist than to kill just anybody, Blancornelas said. The more obvious changes are in his own life. The army has assigned heavily armed elite guards to him and Baja California state special police protect his family and the newspaper. Looking uncomfortable in a 15-pound (7-kg) bulletproof vest, Ramon Blanco Villalon, one of Blancornelas' three sons and a Zeta photographer, shrugged.
As they say up north, the show must go on, he said with a smile as he drove around town with two bodyguards in a car packed with walkie-talkies, automatic rifles and revolvers. Blancornelas said he had not had time to notice the change. He was still recovering from the punctured lung, shredded liver and pummeled spinal column he suffered in the attack and his doctors have not allowed him out of the house much.
This is just how we have to live now. On the other hand, if I could be confident the police will capture the Arellano Felix brothers, that would be the end of my problems, he said. (Reuters)
I can't go to mass with all my police because people would be afraid. So a priest has to come here and give me communion, the 61-year-old journalist explained, almost apologetically, in an interview with Reuters. A lot has changed in the life of the crusading anti-drugs editor of investigative weekly Zeta since 9:35 a.m. on November 27, when about 10 thugs wielding AK-47s and shotguns and working for the notorious Arellano Felix brothers tried to kill him.
His bodyguard, Luis Lauro Valero Elizaldi, died with 30 bullet wounds defending his boss as their Ford Explorer was ambushed a few blocks from the Zeta offices. Blancornelas himself probably survived only because the suspected leader of the execution squad, Israeli-trained hitman David Barron Corona, alias CH, died after being struck in the eye by a ricocheting shell fired by one of his own men.
I still don't know how I got out of there alive, Blancornelas said, sitting in the living room of his family home in Tijuana, which has been turned into a kind of fortress. A brick wall built while he was in a hospital was visible behind him and three carloads of guards dressed in black blocked the street outside. Drug Wars Terror in Mexico The scene was reminiscent of Colombia's 1980s drug wars, when Medellin cocaine king Pablo Escobar took on the government in a terror campaign that included the assassination of a newspaper editor and the bombing of a daily paper's offices.
But it was actually taking place half an hour from the United States, on the border with California near San Diego. Blancornelas said he was certain that CH's companions, like their leader, came from Logan, a San Diego suburb. Barron was also wanted for the 1993 killing at Guadalajara airport of Mexico's Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Posadas Ocampo. Zeta has won praise for its hard-hitting coverage.
Tijuana, its base, is also the home turf of Ramon, Benjamin and Javier Arellano Felix, each with million-dollar rewards on their heads and responsible for a sizable chunk of the flow of cocaine into the United States. Waving a bullet-scarred hand, Blancornelas said he believed barron and his bosses got pissed off by Zeta's reports. Shortly before the murder attempt, the weekly named Barron for the first time and identified him as one of the assassins of two Mexican anti-drugs agents.
It said he was trained in Israel and that he and his fellow killers wore tape over their finger tips to obscure any prints. Zeta also published a list of Arellano Felix organization members based on testimony from the cartel's financial wizard Arturo El Kity Paez, who was arrested in early November. Drug Lord Brothers Don't Appreciate Publicity They didn't like what was being put on paper.
These brothers really don't appreciate the publicity and they have no qualms about hitting reporters, said a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official, asking not to be identified. Blancornelas said he believed the attack marked a change in relations between the media and Mexican traffickers. Unlike some of their more ruthless Colombian counterparts, Mexican smugglers had acknowledged previously that druglords are news and journalists must cover the news.
I can only hope they have understood that it is more difficult to kill a journalist than to kill just anybody, Blancornelas said. The more obvious changes are in his own life. The army has assigned heavily armed elite guards to him and Baja California state special police protect his family and the newspaper. Looking uncomfortable in a 15-pound (7-kg) bulletproof vest, Ramon Blanco Villalon, one of Blancornelas' three sons and a Zeta photographer, shrugged.
As they say up north, the show must go on, he said with a smile as he drove around town with two bodyguards in a car packed with walkie-talkies, automatic rifles and revolvers. Blancornelas said he had not had time to notice the change. He was still recovering from the punctured lung, shredded liver and pummeled spinal column he suffered in the attack and his doctors have not allowed him out of the house much.
This is just how we have to live now. On the other hand, if I could be confident the police will capture the Arellano Felix brothers, that would be the end of my problems, he said. (Reuters)