Lis­ten: Side 1 | Side 2

1. With the United States once again expe­ri­enc­ing an “energy cri­sis,” George “W” has turned to Mex­ico as a poten­tial source for the “energy” the United States allegedly lacks. (“US Looks Abroad for Help on Energy” by Henry Tricks; Finan­cial Times; 3/9/2001; p. 6.)

2. After vis­it­ing Mex­ico him­self, Bush dis­patched Energy Sec­re­tary Spencer Abra­ham to Mex­ico City, in order to work with his “regional coun­ter­parts. . . [he said] that he favored ‘freer flow of energy and cap­i­tal among our­selves’ because of dra­matic increases in global energy demand.” (Idem.)

3. What has largely escaped notice is the fact that the Bush fam­ily has long had polit­i­cal and com­mer­cial ties with the Mex­i­can energy inter­ests. (“Los Ami­gos de Bush: The Shady Ties of George W. Bush’s Latino Friends” by Julie Reynolds; El Andar; Fall 2000 [Vol­ume 11, #3]; pp. 20–27.)

4. In addi­tion to their cen­tral role in both the Mex­i­can energy busi­ness and the for­ma­tion of NAFTA, these Latino allies of Dubya have numer­ous ties to drug car­tels. (Ibid.; p. 20.)

5. One of the cen­tral fig­ures in this polit­i­cal milieu is Ernesto Ancira Jr., whose “fam­ily and their part­ners prac­ti­cally own the energy busi­ness in Mex­ico.” (Ibid.; p. 21.)

6. In addi­tion, Ancira “spent his for­ma­tive years close to his indus­tri­al­ist cousins in Mex­ico, who are in-laws of the Sali­nas fam­ily.” (Idem.) (Car­los Sali­nas Gor­tari was Pres­i­dent of Mex­ico and signed the NAFTA treaty for Mexico.)

7. Piv­otally involved in the nego­ti­a­tions that led to the for­ma­tion of NAFTA, “he [Ancira] bestowed travel gifts on Bush’s Com­merce Sec­re­tary Robert Mos­bacher, Sr.” (Ibid.; p. 22.)

8. “He [Ancira] report­edly piloted his Cessna to host air­borne meet­ings so that Mos­bacher and his Mex­i­can coun­ter­part, Jaime Serra, could pri­vately dis­cuss NAFTA.” (Idem.)

9. One of Bush’s most impor­tant Latin back­ers, Ancira “co-chaired ‘Ade­lante con Bush’ when George Senior ran for pres­i­dent, and along the way, he befriended George W.” (Idem.)

10. “He [Ancira] is one of the folks George W. Bush’s peo­ple call his ‘100 clos­est friends,’ a group that kicked off W’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign last year with $1000 dona­tions.” (Idem.)

11. Together with attor­ney Roy Bar­rera Junior, Ancira is an impor­tant rea­son for the sup­port that Dubya received from the Latin pop­u­la­tion in Texas. Bar­rera, too, was allied with Bush Senior. “Dur­ing the president’s 1992 cam­paign Lit­tle Roy [Bar­rera] even teamed up and drove a mobile home from Austin to San Anto­nio to stump for the can­di­date. That same year, Bar­rera became head of the Bexar County (San Anto­nio) Repub­li­can party and has chaired it ever since.” (Idem.)

12. Barrera’s chummy rela­tion­ship with Bar­bara Bush (and the rest of the Bush clan) is all the more inter­est­ing in light of his sta­tus as being “among Texas’s best narco-lawyers.” (Idem.)

13. Ancira, too, has numer­ous ties to peo­ple involved with some of Mexico’s most pow­er­ful drug car­tels. (Ibid.; p. 21.)

14. Fur­ther­more, the indi­vid­u­als con­nected to the Bush Latino cir­cle also have evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning in the direc­tion of a num­ber of mur­ders, includ­ing the assas­si­na­tions of Mex­i­can politi­cians Luis Don­aldo Colo­sio and Jose Fran­cisco Ruiz Massieu. (Ibid.; pp. 23–24.)

15. Ancira was part of a troika that encom­passed financier Guillermo Avila, devel­oper Gus­tavo Gar­cia and (later) Enrique Fuentes Leon. (Ibid.; p. 22.)

16. “Avila was found guilty of con­spir­acy to laun­der mon­e­tary instru­ments on behalf of drug traf­fick­ers. Incred­i­bly, he served a lit­tle over a year in prison. After­ward, he was ban­ished from the U.S. and moved to San Luis Potosi.” (Idem.)

17. Ancira “wrote to the US Attor­ney in the case and said that Avila was a ‘respon­si­ble indi­vid­ual’ who had a ‘pos­i­tive impact on our com­mu­nity.’” (Idem.)

18. As men­tioned above, Bar­rera (and his father) have defended numer­ous drug king­pins. “Among the choice clients the Bar­reras have defended are the Juarez cartel’s US ‘coor­di­na­tor’ Juan Chapa Garza (now serv­ing thirty years for drug traf­fick­ing and money laun­der­ing), and Mario Alberto Sali­nas Trevino, a cocaine run­ner and alleged mur­der, whom the FBI also links to the 1985 mur­der of Drug Enforce­ment Admin­is­tra­tion (DEA) agent Enrique Camarena.” (Ibid.; p. 23.)

19. One of the most unsa­vory of the Bush cir­cle, is Enrique Fuentes Leon. Leon was “a fugi­tive sought in Mex­ico for brib­ing judges on behalf of a rich Aca­pulco play­boy who raped, tor­tured and killed a six-year old girl.” (Idem.)

20. “Fuentes Leon fled to Chile, then Argentina. Then he arrived in Texas with a visa that said he was an investor.” (Idem.)

21. “With his visa about to expire, Fuentes Leon made fruit­less pleas to America’s high and mighty–including George W. Bush, who called his father, the pres­i­dent, on behalf of Fuentes Leon’s behalf.” (Idem.)

22. In addi­tion, Fuentes Leon was about to face charges of attempted bribery and drug money-laundering. (Idem.)

23. He was rep­re­sented by the Bar­reras. (Idem.)

24. “At the hear­ing, a remark­able tape was played, recorded while Fuentes Leon arranged to bribe an under­cover INS agent. The tape was made in the sum­mer of 1994, a few months after the assas­si­na­tion of pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Luis Don­aldo Colo­sio. Fuentes Leon bragged that his son Enrique, also a lawyer, was ‘one of [Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent] Zedillo’s peo­ple.’ In a moment of bravado, Fuentes Leon told the INS agent, ‘I know how they killed Colo­sio.’ And he said some­thing even more chill­ing: ‘in the end, in August. . .there are going to be deaths and all that shit, eh?. . .There are going to be more deaths.’ And so it was: Jose Fran­cisco Ruiz Massieu, the Guer­rero gov­er­nor who had wanted Fuentes Leon to face charges in Mex­ico, was assas­si­nated soon after.” (Idem.)

25. Accord­ing to US agents, “another man wanted for orches­trat­ing the assassination’s logis­tics was with Fuentes Leon moments before his arrest in San Anto­nio. The man, Manuel Munoz Rocha, sim­ply walked away, because at the time the agents didn’t know he was a fugi­tive with a $1 mil­lion price on his head.” (Idem.)

26. There are a num­ber of evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries con­nect­ing Munoz Rocha to the Massieu assas­si­na­tion. (Ibid.; pp. 23, 26.)

27. Ulti­mately, Raul Sali­nas (Car­los’ brother) was con­victed of the Massieu mur­der. Raul Sali­nas also has links to the Bush clan. “Raul Sali­nas, the president’s brother, has told inves­ti­ga­tors that Jeb and Columba Bush joined him three times for vaca­tions at his Hacienda Las Men­doci­nas.” (Ibid.; p. 21.)

28. The third mem­ber of the Encira three­some, Gus­tavo Gar­cia is an inter­est­ing indi­vid­ual, as well. “Gar­cia has been under inves­ti­ga­tion by the DEA for cocaine traf­fick­ing in Florida and Venezuela, and by local police for money laun­der­ing in San Anto­nio.” (Ibid.; p. 26.)

29. One of Garcia’s busi­ness part­ners is Anuar Name. “News­pa­pers reported that Name co-owned a Tijuana disco, together with a mem­ber of the Caro-Quintero drug car­tel of Sonora. Name is also an asso­ciate of Egypt­ian arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, a friend of Raul Sali­nas, and a part­ner of PRI king-maker Car­los Hank Gon­za­lez, whose fam­ily has been inves­ti­gated in the US, Costa Rica and Mex­ico for links to drug car­tels, mur­der and money laun­der­ing.” (Idem.) (Khashoggi was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scan­dal. George Bush, Sr. orches­trated that operation.)

30. In turn, Name is close to Joseph Audi of the Lebanese Bank Audi. (Idem.) That bank “has been involved in a multi-million dol­lar arms run­ning and money laun­der­ing scan­dal. . . . But Bank Audi has a more aus­pi­cious claim to fame: its Geneva branch was the issu­ing bank of a $599,985 pay­ment that made its way through sev­eral banks until it landed in an account belong­ing to Manuel Munoz Rocha and a hit man con­victed in the assault that killed Jose Fran­cisco Ruiz Massieu.” (Idem.)

31. Bush asso­ciate Roy Bar­rera got him­self involved with yet another grisly case. “He rep­re­sented mil­lion­aire Allan Black­thorne after the contract-style mur­der of Blackthorne’s ex-wife, Sheila Bel­lush. The case made national head­lines because Bel­lush was stabbed to death in front of her tod­dler quadru­plets, and they crawled in her blood until they were found. The hit man, Jose Del Toro, fled to Mex­ico and was rep­re­sented by none other than Barrera’s old Gulf car­tel client, the pres­ti­gious office of Enrique Fuentes Leon. Bar­rera was dropped as Blackthorne’s lawyer, and the US Jus­tice Depart­ment began inves­ti­gat­ing who paid Del Toro’s pre­sum­ably high-priced legal bills. Del Toro said, in a taped inter­view, that he was told by his US lawyer that Bar­rera had hired Fuentes Leon.” (Ibid.; p.27.)

32. To learn more about these con­nec­tions, visit El Andar’s web site.