They Got Filthy Rich off Cocaine Trafficking and Killed Leftists. Now AMLO Must Make Them Pay.
In Mexico, the “war on drugs” was never about drugs at all, but about repressing social movements, smashing unions, and creating a shock-doctrine atmosphere for conservative governments to privatize pensions, health services, and the oil sector. The AMLO administration must dismantle the narco-state.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador walks during the ceremony of deployment of the new Mexican security force, the National Guard, at Campo Marte on June 30, 2019 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)
On January 3, 2020, a spectacle flashed across television screens that many in Mexico thought they would never see: Genaro García Luna, secretary of public security during Felipe Calderón’s administration, standing before a judge in a courtroom.
Pale and disheveled, handcuffed and in shackles, García Luna pleaded not guilty to three charges of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and one count of making false statements. Denied bail, the once all-powerful top cop was led away, teary-eyed and hugging his mother.
The courtroom, however, was not in Mexico, but in New York City.
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