A8| Saturday/Sunday, October 19 - 20, 2019 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau
at a Montreal rally Thursday
and, below, between his father
Pierre Trudeau and Britain’s
Margaret Thatcher in 1980.front of key government build-
ings and gas stations, torching
cars and sending plumes of
smoke over the Culiacán sky-
line. It gave the impression of
a civil war, sparking panic
among the population, said
Eduardo Guerrero, a former
top Mexican security official.
Mexico’s powerful drug car-
tels are likely to take note of
the Sinaloa cartel’s use of mili-
tary power and tactics in free-
ing Mr. Guzmán, and emulate
it, said Mike Vigil, a former
head of international opera-
tions for the U.S. Drug En-
forcement Administration,
who has also served in Mexico.
“Releasing Ovidio sends a
vivid message to criminal car-
tels that if a group’s leader is
captured, all you have to do is
go into a town, commit whole-
sale violence, and the govern-
ment will release him,” he
said.
Mr. López Obrador said his
government would no longer
focus on capturing cartel lead-
ers but work on alleviating
poverty. “What happened yes-
terday was lamentable, but in
no way does it mean our strat-
egy has failed,” he told report-
ers during his morning news
conference. The president is
also relying on the force of his
personality to tamp down
crime, calling on gang mem-
bers to think of their mothers.
“We’re calling on criminals to
tone it down, that we all start
to behave better. To hell with
criminals. Fuchi, guacala,” he
said, using colloquial terms
that mean “gross, yuck.”
—Anthony Harrup, Robbie
Whelan and Santiago Pérez
contributed to this article.The scene around a bullet-riddled truck in Culiacán, Mexico.AUGUSTO ZURITA/ASSOCIATED PRESSCity on Friday to thank the
president for freeing Mr.
Guzmán. “The calculus the
president made was that a sin-
gle Mexican life is worth more
than all the violence that was,
as they say in music, reaching
a crescendo,” attorney Juan
Pablo Badillo said.
Mr. Sandoval said Friday
that a unit of Mexico’s Na-
tional Guard had located Ovi-
dio Guzmán, but acted hastily
and arrived at a safe house
without a warrant. While they
were waiting for it, cartel gun-
men allegedly opened fire. Se-curity forces captured Mr.
Guzmán, officials said, but
then found themselves sur-
rounded by cartel gunmen
who arrived as backup.
Within minutes of Mr.
Guzmán’s capture, hundreds of
cartel gunmen sprang into ac-
tion. Convoys of SUVs and
pickups filled the city streets.
Gunmen wore bulletproof
vests and toted assault rifles,
and at least two had machine
guns, according to security ex-
perts who analyzed video foot-
age of the events.
“The criminal organiza-
tion’s ability to call on its
members and power of re-
sponse was underestimated,”
said Mr. Sandoval.
Mobsters sprayed bullets inThe incident
stunned many and
raised pressure on
the president.years old, running in a tight
race with his main opponent,
Conservative Party leader An-
drew Scheer, with both polling
in the low 30% range as Mon-
day’s vote nears.
Mr. Scheer has accused him
of being a hypocrite and a
fraud. “He can’t even remem-
ber how many times he put
blackface on, because the fact
of the matter is he’s always
wearing a mask,” he said dur-
ing a debate on Oct. 7.
Even if Mr. Trudeau gets to
form the next government,
polls suggest he will need the
support of other parties to
govern. That would be a blow
to a young politician who
swept to power four years ago
with a commanding majority
and gained global recognition
as a new progressive star.
“These are things that are
going to stick with him, and
there’s nothing he can do to
change his brand,” said Nik
Nanos, head of Ottawa polling
firm Nanos Research.
People who were close to
Mr. Trudeau in his 20s said
the images marked a lapse in
judgment but weren’t inconsis-
tent with who they knew himto be—someone who was often
the center of attention and
wasn’t thinking about the im-
plications of his actions or his
political future.
“He’s fundamentally an in-
trovert operating as an extro-
vert,” said Marc Miller, a Lib-
eral Party lawmaker who has
known the prime minister
since the mid-1980s when they
attended school in Montreal.“He’s a quiet, inward person,
but at times like Halloween, he
is that guy. He’s prone to spo-
radic displays of exuberance.”
After completing a degree
in literature at Montreal’s
McGill University at 22, Mr.
Trudeau traveled through Eu-
rope, Africa and Asia with
friends. He taught snowboard-
ing on Canada’s west coast,
got a degree in education, andthen taught math and French
at a private school in Vancou-
ver, British Columbia, before
eventually moving back to
Montreal in the early 2000s.
Rob Schuster, who got to
know Mr. Trudeau while
teaching snowboarding, said
Mr. Trudeau never made a big
deal of his family’s political
legacy. The idea of him ever
getting into politics came up
mostly as a joke at the time.
At first, “I didn’t have a
clue who he was,” said Mr.
Schuster, who is originally
from the U.S. “He was just try-
ing to be Justin, to get away
from all of that.”
Mr. Trudeau, a big Star
Wars fan, spent several days
making an elaborate costume
of one of the characters, Boba
Fett, for Halloween one year,
Mr. Schuster said. On another
occasion, at a James Bond-
themed party, he showed up
with cigars that had been
given to his father by formerWORLD NEWS
Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Mr. Trudeau has acknowl-
edged his enthusiasm has
landed him in trouble. He
came under heavy criticism
for a 2018 trip to India that
featured him and his family
dressed up in traditional In-
dian garb.
Mr. Trudeau sprang into the
Canadian public consciousness
after delivering a eulogy at his
father’s funeral in 2000. The
speech was widely seen as the
unofficial beginning of his po-
litical stardom, though friends
insist he was focused on his
grief, not politics.
“When his father passed
away, something deeply
changed with where he was
going to go with his life. It
was a big defining moment for
him,” Mr. Schuster said.
By 2002, Mr. Trudeau was
back in Montreal, where he
started but didn’t finish an en-
gineering degree. Mr. Trudeau
has written he returned to
Montreal because he believed
it was time to settle down and
possibly start a family. He con-
tinued to deny an interest in
political life.
Mr. Trudeau met his wife,
former broadcast journalist
Sophie Grégoire, in 2003, and
they married two years later.
By 2006, friends say, he began
to think seriously about his
political future.
Mr. Trudeau was sworn in
as Canada’s prime minister in- His four-year term was
marked, in part, by the accep-
tance of more than 25,
Syrian refugees and an empha-
sis on diversity.
Terry DiMonte, a Montreal
radio show host and friend of
Mr. Trudeau, said he views the
blackface images as the kind
of mistake many people have
made in their past, adding
that Mr. Trudeau would never
be consciously hurtful.
The notion of putting to-
gether an over-the-top cos-
tume also fits, he said, with a
person who was known to be
rambunctious and fun-loving.
“We all have a friend who
would grab the mic at a party
and try to sing a song,” Mr. Di-
Monte said. “He didn’t let the
fact that he was a Trudeau get
in the way of that.”
Nearly a decade ago, before
taking the helm of Canada’s
Liberal Party and becoming
prime minister, Justin Trudeau
sat down for lunch with a
prominent political commenta-
tor in Ottawa to hear a pitch
for a possible book.
Don Martin believed Mr.
Trudeau, the son of former Ca-
nadian Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau and a newly elected
lawmaker, was likely a few
years away from becoming
leader of the Liberal Party. A
book about Mr. Trudeau’s life
could help introduce him to the
public, Mr. Martin suggested.
Mr. Trudeau turned him
down, Mr. Martin recalled, tell-
ing him he would never be
prime minister. And Mr.
Trudeau suggested he had se-
crets. “I kind of figured that it
was a throwaway quip to nicely
say ‘no’ to my request at the
time,” Mr. Martin said recently.
Last month, one secret blew
into the open shortly after the
start of his re-election cam-
paign, when Time Magazine
published a photo of a 29-
year-old Mr. Trudeau, dressed
as a character from the tale
Aladdin, at an Arabian Nights
party. His face, hands and neck
were painted brown. Two
more images of Mr. Trudeau
with his face painted black
emerged immediately after.
Mr. Trudeau apologized, citing
his privileged upbringing for
failing to recognize what he
did back then was wrong.
The controversy has dam-
aged Mr. Trudeau’s image as a
champion of diversity. The
publication of the images,
along with a scandal earlier in
the year over allegations he
tried to interfere in a criminal
prosecution of a Montreal en-
gineering company,SNC-Lava-
lin GroupInc., has turned his
character and judgment into
top issues for voters.
Polls show Mr. Trudeau, 47
BYKIMMACKRAEL
ANDPAULVIEIRA
Trudeau’s Judgment Is Issue as Vote Nears
Canada leader, seen as
‘prone to sporadic
displays of exuberance,’
faces tightening race
SEAN KILPATRICK/ASSOCIATED PRESSA younger brother of Hondu-
ras’s president was found guilty
of trafficking more than 200
tons of cocaine in a trial that
revealed deep links between
drug cartels and top officials in
one of Washington’s closest al-
lies in Central America.
Juan Antonio “Tony”
Hernández, 41 years old, was
found guilty in a federal court
in Manhattan of drug conspir-
acy and weapons possessions
charges in a case that featured
testimony from four major
drug traffickers and extensive
drug ledgers. He could face a
life sentence in prison.
U.S. prosecutors drew a pic-
ture of Honduras as a narco
state where drug lords, includ-
ing the legendary Mexican
kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo”
Guzmán, gave politicians of the
ruling National Party millions
of dollars to enrich themselves
and buy votes to cement their
political power.
Once in office, the politi-
cians, including current Pres-
ident Juan Orlando Hernán-
dez, a close ally of the Trump
administration, allegedly
gave police and military pro-
tection for drug shipments.
They also provided drug
lords immunity from prosecu-
tion and extradition to the
U.S., prosecutors said.
President Hernández, who
hasn’t been charged with any
crime, is listed as a co-conspir-
ator in court documents. He
has repeatedly denied receiving
money from cartels. His prede-
cessor, Porfirio Lobo, is also
listed as a co-conspirator. He
hasn’t been charged and denies
ties to drug traffickers.
President Hernández still
has support at home thanks to
his close alliance with Presi-
dent Trump, who praised him
last month after Honduras
signed a controversial immigra-
tion agreement with the U.S.BYJOSÉ DECÓRDOBAHonduras
Leader’s
Brother Is
Found Guilty
In Drug Case
way against the country’s re-
lentless cartel-fueled violence.
On Friday, he defended the de-
cision to release the younger
Mr. Guzmán, after street
clashes the day before left at
least eight people dead and 16
wounded. “The situation be-
came very difficult. Many citi-
zens were at risk,” the presi-
dent said. “I agreed with that.”
Cartel gunmen had also kid-
napped eight army soldiers
and an officer, said Mexico’s
Defense Minister Luis Cresen-
cio Sandoval. They were re-
leased after the drug lord was
freed. Schools remained closed
on Friday, as did many busi-
nesses.Mr. Guzmán, who is only in
his late 20s but has emerged
as a top figure in the cartel
along with his brothers Iván
Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo
following the arrest and extra-
dition of their father in 2017.
The incident was the third
major gunbattle of the week.
On Monday, at least 13 state
police in Michoacán state were
massacred by suspected gun-
men from the country’s pow-
erful Jalisco cartel. A day
later, one soldier and 14 al-
leged cartel gunmen died in a
shootout in Guerrero state.
The violence, along with ex-
tortion of businesses by orga-
nized crime, is one factor in
Mexico’s economic stagnation.
The economy has failed to
grow so far this year. A survey
by Mexico’s central bank found
that violence and political un-
certainty are the top two ob-
stacles to economic growth.
The administration’s back-
ing down to the cartel’s offen-
sive was sharply criticized by
many ordinary Mexicans and
security analysts, who chal-
lenged Mr. López Obrador’s
policy of using force only as a
last resort in an attempt to
pacify one of the world’s most
violent nations. He has called
the policy “hugs, not bullets,”
promising to focus on attack-
ing poverty rather than car-
tels.
Mexico’s number of mur-
ders is on pace for a record-
high 37,000 this year, accord-
ing to the country’s national
statistics agency. The U.S.,
which has nearly three times
Mexico’s population, has about
15,000 murders a year, accord-
ing to data from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
Security analysts said the
Culiacán incident was a pub-
lic-relations disaster for the
government, which looked
weak in the face of cartel fire-
power. “Lopez Obrador was
confident his call for peace
and love—and not going after
narcos—would lower vio-
lence,” said Raúl Benitez, an
analyst at the Autonomous
University of Mexico. Instead,
he said the president has
given free rein to gangs. “It
shows the peace-and-love
strategy is not working.”
Adding to the sense of im-
punity, a lawyer representing
the Guzmán family held a
press conference in Mexicoand sophistication, showing
that the Sinaloa cartel is alive
and well despite the absence
of its leader, who is now serv-
ing a life prison sentence.
The incident stunned many
in Mexico and raised pressure
on President Andrés Manuel
López Obrado to make head-
ContinuedfromPageOne
Mexico
Cartel
Rules City
LAWRENCE HARRIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS