The New York Times - USA (2020-10-17)

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALSATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2020 Y A

defense minister from 2012 to
2018, is being charged with laun-
dering money and trafficking her-
oin, cocaine, methamphetamines
and marijuana from late 2015
through early 2017, according to
an indictment unsealed in the
Eastern District of New York on
Friday.
The charges are the result of a
multiyear sting that investigators
called Operation Padrino. Offi-
cials say that General Cienfuegos
helped the H-2 cartel, a criminal
group that committed horrific acts
of violence as part of its drug
smuggling business, with its mari-
time shipments. In exchange for
lucrative payouts, officials say,
General Cienfuegos also directed
military operations away from the
cartel and toward its rivals.
The news not only casts a pall
over Mexico’s fight against orga-
nized crime, but also underscores
the extent of corruption at the
highest levels of government.
General Cienfuegos was defense
minister throughout the adminis-
tration of President Enrique Peña
Nieto, who left office two years
ago.
The damage to Mexico is hard
to overstate. The general’s arrest
comes only 10 months after an-
other top Mexican official — who
once led the Mexican equivalent
of the F.B.I. — was indicted in New
York on charges of taking bribes
while in office to protect the Sina-
loa drug cartel, one of Mexico’s
most powerful criminal mafias.
That official, Genaro García
Luna, served as the head of Mexi-
co’s Federal Investigation Agency
from 2001 to 2005, and for the next
six years was Mexico’s secretary
of public security, a cabinet-level
position. In that role, he had the
task of helping the president at the
time, Felipe Calderón, create the
nation’s strategy to battle drug
cartels.
If the men are convicted, it
means that two of the highest-
ranking and most widely re-
spected commanders ever to
oversee the war on drugs in Mex-
ico were working with organized
crime — helping the very cartels
that continue to kill record num-

bers of Mexicans. The two cases call into question the American role in the drug war as well. For years, American officials have helped shape and fund Mexico’s strategies, and they have relied on their Mexican counterparts for operations, intel- ligence and broad security co- operation. If the allegations hold up, some of those same Mexican leaders were playing a double game. “The difficulty in working in Mexico where you have this level of corruption is that you never re- ally know who you’re working with,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. “There’s always a con- cern that Mexican law enforcement could compromise you, or compromise an informant, or compromise an investigation.” Both Mr. García Luna and Gen- eral Cienfuegos served at the top of the government when homi- cides spiked to historic levels, drug cartels waged war and military operations were expanded. A mercurial presence, General Cienfuegos symbolized the promi- nent role the military plays in Mexico. Commanders are granted an extraordinary amount of au- tonomy, seldom bowing to political pressures and typically enjoy- ing protection by the president. “There has never been a minister of defense in Mexico arrested,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister. “The minister of defense in Mex- ico is a guy that not only runs the army and is a military man, but he reports directly to the president. There is no one above him except the president.” Because of that power and au- tonomy, analysts and others have long suspected some top leaders of corruption. But with their elevated status, no one dared investi- gate — at least not in Mexico. “This is a huge deal,” said Ale- jandro Madrazo, a professor at CIDE, a university in Mexico. “The military has become way more corrupt and way more abu- sive since the war on drugs was declared, and for the first time they may not be untouchable — but not by the Mexican government, by the American government.” On Friday, responding to the arrest, Mexico’s current president,

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, both defended the military and disparaged the bad actors in it. But it was unclear whether Mr. López Obrador would step back from his heavy reliance on the military, whose role has expanded during his administration to in- clude everything from construc- tion to public security. Mexico’s military has been a central part of the nation’s domestic security since the crackdown on drug cartels began in 2006, with soldiers deployed to regions overrun by organized crime. The secretary of defense oversees that effort. The use of soldiers trained in combat but not in policing has brought problems well beyond corruption. With the military front and center in the fight against nar- cotics trafficking, the Mexican government has never built an ef- fective police force. In December 2017, Mexico passed a security law cementing the military’s role in fighting the drug war, outraging the United Nations and human rights groups. They warned that the measure would lead to abuses, leave troops on the streets indefinitely and mil- itarize police activities for the foreseeable future. General Cienfuegos played a crucial role in convincing poli- ticians to pass the law, which gave the military legal permission to do what it had been doing for a dec-

ade without explicit authoriza- tion. At one point, he threatened to withdraw his troops from the streets, arguing they were not trained for domestic security and were exposed legally. But General Cienfuegos also defended the military, saying it was the only institution effectively confronting organized crime. As drug violence rocketed, he asked again and again that the federal government provide a legal

framework to protect the forces. “Today the crimes we are deal- ing with are of another level and importance; they involve a lot of people, sometimes entire families, and we are acting without a legal frame,” General Cienfuegos said in March 2018. “Without it, our help is impeded.” The military has repeatedly been singled out for human rights abuses and the use of excessive force, including accusations of ex- trajudicial killings that dogged the armed forces throughout General Cienfuegos’s tenure as defense minister.

His arrest does not appear to have been a joint operation with the Mexican government. It reaches back to an American-led investigation in late 2013 of a Mex- ican drug cartel run by Fausto Isidro Meza Flores, a successor to the once powerful Beltran-Leyva drug organization, according to two American law enforcement officials. Even though a group of Ameri- can agents was able at the time to identify General Cienfuegos as a corrupt partner in the Meza Flo- res organization, there was push- back from other American and Mexican law enforcement agen- cies, and General Cienfuegos was never fully investigated, one of the officials said. But by 2015, the official said, pressure to do something about General Cienfuegos increased. At least two separate American wiretaps began to pick up chatter about a powerful underworld fig- ure who was referred to as “Pa- drino” and was believed to be General Cienfuegos. The wiretaps had targeted the Sinaloa cartel and the H-2 cartel, a smaller criminal organization connected to Mr. Meza Flores’s group, the former official said. The United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn has in recent months become ground zero for cases related to official corruption in Mexico. Prosecutors there have not only charged Mr. García Luna and two of his former associates, Ramon Pequeno and Luis Cardenas Palo- mino, but have also prosecuted Edgar Veytia, the former attorney general of the state of Nayarit. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison last October for conspiring with the H-2 cartel. The case against General Cien- fuegos helps illustrate in some ways why it has been so difficult for Mexico to take the lead in these investigations. Among the findings by U.S. authorities: General Cienfuegos was actively corrupting other Mexi- can officials by introducing high- level cartel members to those will- ing to swap bribes for favors. At one point, court records say, he alerted the cartel that there was a U.S. investigation into their activities, prompting them to kill a fellow member they falsely believed to be sharing information with the authorities.

Mexico Is Shaken by Drug Arrest of Ex-Defense Minister

From Page A

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed
reporting from Washington, and
Louis Keene from Los Angeles.

Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, right, was arrested in Los Angeles.

MARCO UGARTE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The 2nd major official

to be arrested on drug

charges in 10 months.

BANGKOK — A confrontation
between the Thai authorities and
antigovernment demonstrators
that has escalated in recent days
jumped to an uncertain new phase
on Friday, as protesters were forc-
ibly dispersed and two of the
movement’s participants were
charged with violating an obscure
law against endangering the royal
family.
Riot police officers deployed
powerful water cannons for the
first time, drenching demonstra-
tors with a stinging liquid and car-
rying out a spate of new arrests in
a crackdown that has hit the pro-
tests with an arsenal of threats,
diktats and detentions.
The invoking of the arcane law,
which carries up to life impris-
onment for committing “an act of
violence against the queen’s lib-
erty,” added to the tensions in
Thailand, which has been peri-
odically engulfed by political tur-
moil and is known for strict meas-
ures to prevent disparaging the
king and his kin.
The “act of violence” was, ap-
parently, yelling at a royal motor-
cade.
Two days earlier, a stretch
Rolls-Royce carrying Queen
Suthida Vajiralongkorn Na Ayu-
dhya and Prince Dipangkorn Ras-
mijoti, the heir apparent, had
made a surprise detour past some
of the protesters, who have been
calling for fresh elections and re-
forms to the monarchy for
months.
“Oh, the royal motorcade,” said
Aekachai Hongkangwan, a vet-
eran political activist, throwing
his hand up in the defiant three-
fingered salute that the protesters
have borrowed from “The Hunger
Games.”
“Stay in line and keep the
peace,” added Bunkueanun
Paothong, a college student,
through a megaphone.
That was it. Both accounts were
confirmed by eyewitnesses and
video footage. But by Friday, both
Mr. Aekachai and Mr. Bunkuea-
nun had been charged with vio-
lating Section 110 of Thailand’s
criminal code — a provision so ar-
cane that a database of Thai Su-
preme Court cases makes no men-
tion of it.
With an army-drafted Constitu-
tion and some legal provisions
that hark back to when the coun-
try was an absolute monarchy,
Thailand has plenty of draconian
offenses that can land people in
jail for speaking out. A lèse-ma-
jesté law criminalizes criticism of
the royal family and can mean
prison sentences of up to 15 years.
(Mr. Aekachai once served two

years in prison for insulting the crown.) Sedition and computer crime acts have been used to in- carcerate others. The use of Section 110, however, was unexpected. Human rights lawyers and legal scholars were left scrambling to understand what exactly constituted an “act of violence against the queen’s liberty.” Punishment for the crime, which also applies to acts against the heir apparent, ranges from 16 years to life in prison. “When I was a student, the lec- turer didn’t teach this and just skipped this law,” said Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, an opposition po- litician and former law professor. On Friday, the police searched the offices of Mr. Piyabutr’s political movement, under a new emergency decree that the government announced on Thursday. It bans gatherings of five or more people in Bangkok and allows the police to declare any place off-lim- its to protesters. The demonstrators can be held without charge for up to 30 days, without access to lawyers or relatives. “Don’t be reckless because ev- eryone can die today or tomor- row,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said during a news conference on Friday, in what was

seen as a warning to stop the ral- lies. “Don’t challenge the grim reaper.” The protesters ignored Mr. Prayuth’s advice. On Friday after- noon, thousands of them, mostly student-aged, gathered again in a steady rain, just as they had the

day before in defiance of the emergency decree. On Friday evening, hundreds of riot police officers charged toward the protesters and used water cannons against them for the first time. They gushed a stinging blue liquid, compelling the demonstrators to pull back. With a smaller contingent remaining, protest leaders called an end to the rally, saying that a re- treat did not signify defeat. The police said that seven people had been arrested and that there had been injuries among both the security forces and civilians. The

emergency decree was extended to Nov. 13. The appearance of the royal motorcade on Wednesday was a shock for the protesters, who had never expected to be in such prox- imity to the queen and the prince. King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodin- dradebayavarangkun, the queen and the heir apparent spend most of the year in Germany and rarely return to Thailand. (The queen is the king’s fourth wife, and the prince is the son of his third wife; the king also has a noble consort, akin to an official mistress.) Criticism of the royal family’s elevated status in Thailand has been taboo for decades, but the student-led protest movement has shattered this convention. “The goal is to change the whole political system, including the monarchy and the prime minister,” said Napassorn Saenduean, a political science student at Chu- lalongkorn University in Bangkok, who watched the royal motorcade glide past on Wednes- day. It was the first time that members of the royal family had gotten an extended up-close look at these discontented subjects. Mr. Prayuth, a retired general, became prime minister in 2014, after leading an army coup that was

justified, in part, as necessary to protect the monarchy. Thailand’s royal family is among the world’s richest, and King Maha Vajira- longkorn has extended his author- ity over military units and palace assets. On Friday, a speech given by the king the day before was made public, in which the 68-year-old monarch underlined the role of the crown in Thailand. “Now it is understood that the country needs people who love the country and love the monarchy,” he said. The protests have drawn thousands of high-school and college students, who are chronicling their political awakening on social media, even as their parents worry about a violent crackdown. Dozens of people were killed when a protest movement was cleared from the streets in 2010, the most recent bout in a country accus- tomed to deadly political violence. “Every one of us wants a country that belongs to the people,” said Nattarika Donhongpai, a high school student who attended the rally on Thursday evening in her school uniform. “We want every- one to come out and use their rights and voices to express everything.”

Thai Police Use Water Cannons and Arcane Law to Quell Demonstrations

Protesters Friday in Bangkok. Seven people were arrested, and two were charged with “an act of violence against the queen’s liberty.”

ADAM DEAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By HANNAH BEECH

Facing up to life in

prison for yelling at a

royal motorcade.

Ryn Jirenuwat and Muktita
Suhartono contributed reporting.

MOSCOW — Russia on Friday proposed extending a soon-to-ex- pire nuclear arms treaty for one year without any changes, a move seen in Washington as a tactic to delay action on the treaty until after the American presidential election. The Trump administration swiftly dismissed Moscow’s proposal as a “non-starter.” The Russian offer came just two days after the Kremlin rejected as “nonsense” what the Trump administration hailed as a tentative deal to salvage the pact, the New Start treaty, the last remaining major arms control pact between the two biggest nuclear powers. Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, who had previously pushed hard for a five-year extension of the accord, made the surprise proposal during a videoconference with his Kremlin Security Council, saying it would be “extremely sad if the treaty ceased to exist.” While boasting that “we clearly have new weapons systems that the American side does not have, at least not yet,” Mr. Putin cast his offer as a gesture of good will toward “all states of the world that are interested in maintaining stra- tegic stability.” A one year-extension, he added, would allow for “meaningful negotiations” to continue up to and possibly beyond early February, when the current treaty expires. It would also mean Russia could well be negotiating with a new United States president less hos- tile to the terms of the original Obama-era treaty than President Trump has been. The offer drew a cool reception in Washington. Within hours, the Trump administration issued a statement from Robert C. O’Brien, the national security adviser, re- jecting the offer from the Russian president. “President Putin’s response today to extend New Start without freezing nuclear warheads is a non-starter,” Mr. O’Brien said. “The United States is serious about arms control that will keep the entire world safe. We hope that Russia will reevaluate its position before a costly arms race ensues.” Mr. O’Brien repeated the administration’s proposal to extend New Start for one year, “in exchange for Russia and the United States capping all nuclear warheads during that period.” Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nomi- nee, was involved in the negotia- tion of the original 2010 agreement and has indicated that, if elected, he would agree to a straightforward, five-year extension and work later to expand its scope. The Trump administration has balked at agreeing to a five-year extension without revisions, an option that would not require Sen- ate approval. Mr. Trump has deemed that unacceptable because the treaty signed by Presi- dent Barack Obama did not cover all of Russia’s nuclear arms, or any of China’s. China, however, has refused to join any revised version of New Start, arguing that its nuclear arsenal is tiny compared with those of the United States or Russia. While eager to salvage New Start, Russia has shown little in- terest in giving President Trump a foreign policy victory ahead of a United States presidential election now less than three weeks away, indicating, perhaps, that it expects Mr. Biden to win. Senior Russian officials this week poured scorn on claims on Tuesday by Mr. Trump’s lead negotiator, Marshall Billingslea, of an “agreement in principle, at the highest levels of our two governments, to extend the treaty.” Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, dismissed this as fantasy. “Washing- ton is describing what is desired, not what is real,” Mr. Ryabkov, Russia’s chief negotiator, said in a statement. Russia’s open mockery of the supposed deal, however, left Mos- cow looking churlish and risked compromising Mr. Putin’s long- standing efforts to present his country as deeply committed to arms control — in contrast to the United States, which has walked away from a number of accords in the past. Mr. Putin’s proposal on Friday, said Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and a veteran foreign policy analyst, suggested an attempt to correct any damage to Russia’s image from this week’s dispute, more than an offer with a real chance of being accepted. “It is just a public relations shot in the direction of discussion in the United States,” Mr. Trenin said in a telephone interview. “It just re- turns the ball to the U.S. and not much more.”

David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Weston, Vt., and Mi- chael Crowley from Washington.

U.S. Rejects

Russian Plan

To Extend

Nuclear Deal

By ANDREW HIGGINS

The New York Times - USA (2020-10-17)

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