“The CIA helped kill DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena,” say witnesses

[Judi Lynn]

Source: El País

“The CIA helped kill DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena,” say witnesses

Former US law enforcement officials admit that the drug agent’s 1985 murder wasn’t just the work of Rafael Caro Quintero

Juan Diego Quesada / El País Mexico City / Madrid 15 OCT 2013 - 19:09 CET


[font size=1]
Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena[/font]

Surprising allegations concerning the enigmatic murder of a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in Mexico three decades ago may have turned the tide against Washington.

Two former US law enforcement agents and an ex-CIA contractor have told an American television network that Enrique “Kiki” Camarena – the undercover DEA agent whose 1985 torture and murder in Mexico rocked Washington and opened the largest federal homicide inquiries ever – was actually killed by CIA operatives. Camarena’s murder is considered the most heinous crime ever committed against the DEA in Latin America, and it took place at the height of the US drug war of the 1980s.

For years, there had been rumors that the CIA was involved in the murder. The popular Mexican norteño folk band Los Broncos de Reynosa had alluded to this allegation 25 years ago in one of their well-known narcocorridos – drug ballads that are played in local nightspots – but many dismissed it as another legend made up over shots of tequila.

Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the founders of the so-called Guadalajara cartel, was given a 40-year-sentence for Camarena’s murder, but on August 9 he was freed on a legal technicality after only serving 28 years. The now 62-year-old Caro Quintero is still wanted by US authorities, but has since disappeared.



Read more: http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/15/inenglish/1381856701_704435.html

[Octafish]

1. Protecting sources and methods, perhaps...

DEA Agents Agree: CIA means Cocaine Importation Agency

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4061234

[2banon]

3. And wasn't this event tied up in the Iran Contra machinations?

I remember Kiki's assassination, I think the Chrystic Institute was investigating at the time.. (?) and I'm trying to remember how this event tied in with Iran Contra... details, fail me at the moment or maybe I'm mashing it all together in my head...

[Judi Lynn]

4. The pattern is there, isn't it?

From the article:

Before his death, Camarena, 37, had broken a gigantic marijuana ring operating from a ranch called Rancho El Búfalo, where Mexican soldiers destroyed some 1,000 hectares of cannabis in 1984.

In retaliation, the drug cartel ordered his capture and murder. He was kidnapped at gunpoint in Guadalajara, blind-folded and taken to a ranch house outside the city where he was tortured over a three-day period; his skull, jaw, nose and cheekbones were crushed with a tire iron. As he lay dying, a cartel doctor was ordered to keep him alert by administering drugs.

But new revelations suggest that Caro Quintero may have not been the only one responsible for the gruesome murder. Another figure has surfaced in the case, Félix Ismael “El Gato” Rodríguez, a Cuban exile who participated in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. El Gato has also been linked to the 1967 ambush of Ernesto “Che” Guevara in Bolivia.

These CIA-connection claims are now being brought to light by Phil Jordan, the former director of DEA’s powerful El Paso Intelligence Center in Texas; former DEA agent Héctor Berrellez; and Tosh Plumlee, who maintained he was hired to fly covert missions on behalf of US intelligence. The three men spoke to Fox News in exclusive interviews broadcast last Thursday.

They claimed that Mexican police and agents working for the CIA participated in Camarena’s torture and murder.

So why would anyone expect to see Cuban "exile" (former Batistiano) Felix Rodriguez was involved in this?

[center]

Visiting with the Elder at the Vice President's mansion
on a Christmas Eve, the CIA guy from Iran-Contra, etc.







"OPERATION 40 — THE COLD WAR KILLERS CONTROLLED BY BUSH AND RECRUITED BY NIXON — "

(Felix Rodriguez, the one lying on the stage, in the left foreground)[/center]

[Scairp]

22. Not a huge fan of CIA

BUT, this sounds like total bullshit.

[Judi Lynn]

23. Spend time doing your homework, as we all must,

to be informed.

It's all there waiting for you, just as it has been for everyone else who made the effort.

[JonLP24]

2. How terrible

According to Berrellez, a doctor working for the cartel “administered Lidocaine into his heart to keep him alert and awake during the torture.”

Not many things worse than being tortured and helpless to do anything about it.

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. The DEA paid bounty hunters to kidnap that doctor from Mexico.

He was later found innocent of the charges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humberto_%C3%81lvarez_Macha%C3%ADn

[JonLP24]

6. Thanks

Either way, I still think torture is a horrible thing to experience.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Oh, no! This is thoroughly sick. From the Wiki:

Alvarez sues the United States[edit]

In 1993, Alvarez initiated a civil action in the United States District Court for the Central District of California alleging numerous constitutional and tort claims arising from his abduction, detention and trial.[4] Sosa, Garate, five unnamed Mexican nationals, the United States and four DEA agents were listed as defendants.[5] The district court ruled in favor of Alvarez in the amount of $25,000 and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed Sosa's liability on appeal.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari (a review) on December 1, 2003 to determine the issue of whether Alvarez was entitled to remedy pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute.[6] The Supreme Court held that an illegal detention of a single day did not constitute a sufficient harm for relief.[7]

Well, that solves everything, doesn't it? Jeez.

[bananas]

9. But the Supreme Court decision changed the world.

"Immediately thereafter the Ayatollahs declared that they too could rove the world and kidnap violators of Islamic law and drag them back to Iran to stand trial. Kidnapping has now become an accepted tool of law enforcement throughout the world."

http://www.expertwitnessradio.org/site/i-volunteer-to-kidnap-ollie-north/

I Volunteer to Kidnap Ollie North

by Michael Levine – ©1992

<snip>

Now for those of you who are unaware of the allegations of crimes against and bizarre actions of your leaders, all done under the banner of War On Drugs, this may seem a rash, impudent and even—yes I’ll say it—irrational thing to do. But I doubt that you’ll feel that way once you’re aware of the “devil” that made me do it: the facts.

Two years ago a maverick group of DEA agents (Drug Enforcement Administration), feeling enraged, frustrated and betrayed decided to take the law into their own hands. The U.S. government, including high ranking DEA officials, had joined the Mexican government in trying to sweep the “bothersome” matter of the torture death of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena—one of their fellow agents murdered by Mexican police working for drug traffickers—under a rug of political and bureaucratic maneuvering, where it would not disturb oil, trade, banking and secret political agreements. Even the C.I.A. was implicated in protecting Camarena’s murderers, which was no surprise to the DEA agents.[1] Working without the knowledge or approval of most of the top DEA bosses, whom they mistrusted, the agents arranged to have Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, a Mexican citizen alleged to have participated in Kiki’s murder, abducted at gunpoint in Guadalajara Mexico and brought to Los Angeles to stand trial. [2]

On June 16, 1992, the United States Supreme Court ruled the actions of those agents “legal.” The ruling said in no uncertain terms that U.S. law enforcement authorities could literally and figuratively kidnap violators of American drug law in whatever country they found them and drag them physically and against their will to the U.S. to stand trial. Immediately thereafter the Ayatollahs declared that they too could rove the world and kidnap violators of Islamic law and drag them back to Iran to stand trial. Kidnapping has now become an accepted tool of law enforcement throughout the world.

Resorting to all sorts of wild extremes to bring drug traffickers to justice is nothing new for the U.S. government. At various times during my career as a DEA agent I was assigned to some pretty unorthodox operations—nothing quite as radical as invading Panama and killing a few hundred innocents to capture Manny Noriega—but I was once part of a group of undercover agents posing as a travelling soccer team. We landed in Argentina in a chartered jet during the wee hours of the morning, where the Argentine Federal Police had three international drug dealers—two of whom had never in their lives set foot in the United States—waiting for us trussed up in straight-jackets with horse feed-bags over their heads, each beaten to a pulpy, toothless mess. In those years we used to call it a “controlled expulsion.” [3] I think I like the honesty of kidnapping a little better.

And now, since the democratic and staunchly anti-drug nation of Costa Rica has publicly accused Oliver North and some other high-level U.S. officials, of running drugs from their sovereignty to the United States, and appears close to officially charging them with the crime, I find myself, duty-bound to make the following offer to Costa Rica, or any other nation that might have need of my services:[4]

I Michael Levine, twenty-five year veteran undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, given the mandate of the Supreme Court’s Machain Decision and in fulfillment of my oath to the U.S. government and its taxpayers to arrest and seize all those individuals who would smuggle or cause illegal drugs to be smuggled into the United States or who would aid and abet drug smugglers, do hereby volunteer my services to any sovereign, democratic nation who files legal Drug Trafficking charges against Colonel Oliver North and any of his cohorts; to do everything in my power including kidnaping him, seizing his paper shredder, reading him his constitutional rights and dragging his butt to wherever that sovereignty might be, (with or without horse feed-bag); to once-and-for-all stand trial for the horrific damages caused to my country, my fellow law enforcement officers, and to my family.

<snip>

[JHB]

19. Levine has described CIA agents as...

..."frat boys with guns and no honor".

[starroute]

7. Felix Rodriguez? -- that's a name that leads you down the rabbit hole

According to the article cited in the OP, "Another figure has surfaced in the case, Félix Ismael 'El Gato' Rodríguez, a Cuban exile who participated in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. El Gato has also been linked to the 1967 ambush of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in Bolivia."

But there's a lot more to the Rodriguez story than that. From 1969 to 1972, he was part of the drugs-and-assassination operations of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam under Theodore Shackley and Donald Gregg, and in the 1980's, he became Gregg's main man in Central America. He was sent to Honduras in 1981 to help train the Contras. By 1983-84, he was allegedly making arrangements for cocaine smuggling to the US.

An article in the San Francisco Examiner claimed that Rodriguez had been placed in Central America by the office of then-Vice President Bush, and one in the Los Angeles Times reported that Rodriguez had told his associates that he reported on his activities to Bush, whom he'd know since Bush's time as CIA director in 1975.

According to a note in Oliver North's diary, Rodriguez was also part of a plan to treat wounded Contras in Miami through an HMO headed by Cuban-American Miguel Recarey, who later fled the US after being indicted for Medicare fraud. A story published by Mother Jones in 1992 indicated that Recarey had been setting up field hospitals for the Contras using the millions he'd ripped off from Medicare.

Jeb Bush was on Recarey's payroll as a real estate consultant at that time, received a $75,000 fee to find the company a new location -- though the move never took place, which raised questions at the time -- and successfully lobbied the Reagan/Bush administration on Recarey's behalf. According to a book published in 2002, Jeb also served as a conduit to his father in helping set up the Contra deal. (See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/02/usa.books)

So saying "the CIA did it" may be just another level of coverup -- if all the indications point to George H.W. Bush.

[Jesus Malverde]

10. mind blowing...nt

[MisterP]

11. this nauseating case is also why Ollie North's source, Ramon Matta, was illegally extradited

(producing a bipartisan riot in Tegucigalpa that burned down the US Embassy annex)

North ordered 1.5 tonnes of cocaine from Matta at one point--that's a LOT (he's a GOP hero and has his own show! crime does pay!)

[Judi Lynn]

15. So good to see this link. It's valuable. Looking forward to reading it. n/t

[Festivito]

12. One buried first, the other buried alive, sticks in anuses.

It seemed more School of America kind of brutal. More so than a drug lord's brutality.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Anyone wanting to see how Faux News mangled and rewrote this

story might want to take a look at this "news" clip offered by a DU'er who saw this thread. This is one angle you wouldn't expect to see! Not anywhere.

[Blue_Tires]

14. I'm betting this wasn't just a one-time anomaly, either....

[Judi Lynn]

16. I'm sure you're right.

It's just one time someone outside learned about it and the word got out to the public.

Most of those things stay covert, undoubtedly.

[DeSwiss]

17. Sometimes......

...people really crack me up. It's like.... it's right there!!! In front of you!!! Can't you see it!?!?! Huh? Wah? Where?

{shakes head smiling, walks away.....}

K&R

[center]“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” ~George Orwell

[/center]

[wildbilln864]

18. k & r! n/t

[idwiyo]

20. k&r

[Hotler]

21. Is it me or has the trail of what the CIA....

is up to today and how they are getting their money gone cold. Opium from Afghanistan, high frequency trading on wall st., Syria, Iran, ???? It is an easy guess that the Utah Data Center is theirs.

[wildbilln864]

24. and kick again! n/t

[Volaris]

25. I might have missed the larger point, but I wiki'ed Phoenix Program because I'd never heard of it...

Jesus CHRIST...

At some point, we are going to have to DEMAND as a Party Plank that CIA be returned, either by Executive Force of Order or Congressional fund-cutting, COMPLETELY to an intelligence-gathering and analysis Agency ONLY, and NEVER AGAIN allow them to have an in-house "Operations" Directorate.

[777man]

26. KILL THE MESSENGER a 2014 FILM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022291453

Here is ongoing coverage of the film and parallel investigations