North Looking South
By John Barham, July 28, 2006


In last Tuesday's edition of Excelsior, in the "Código" section, a staff article on child-sex abuse in Mexico quoted Ana Rosa Payan, the director general of the National System for the Essential Care of the Family (DIF), who stated that only half of the Mexican states have laws that treat child sexual abuse as a serious crime. The article also cited information from the DIF and UNICEF identifying Acapulco, Cancún, Ciudad Juárez, Guadalajara, Tapachula and Tijuana as hubs for traffic in sex with minors. Furthermore, it has been established that there are at least 10 organized groups in Mexico actively engaged in the child-sex trade and, along with it, forcing minors into prostitution.

During the lead-up to the recent election, PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo's campaign was tarnished in part by allegations having to do with his close ties to Mario Marín, the PRI governor of the state of Puebla and, tangentially, to a child-sex scandal.

In taped telephone conversations published by La Jornada in February, Marín and textile magnate José Kamel Nacif Borge engaged in dialogues on how journalist Lydia Cacho could be silenced. Cacho, author of a child-sex exposé, The Demons of Eden: The Power That Protects Child Pornography, was subsequently arrested by Puebla state police in Cancún, which was at least 900 miles outside their jurisdiction. After her abduction to Puebla, she was jailed and threatened with torture and death. Cacho was freed only after protests from media groups and international organizations.

In the taped conversations, Nacif is heard in extremely flattering and even groveling language referring to Marín as "… my precious governor," thanking him for his efforts against Cacho. In Cacho's book, it is alleged that Nacif has long had close ties to Jean Thomas Succar Kuri, a wealthy 61-year-old legal US resident and Cancún businessman and hotelier, who has profited immensely from various Cancún airport enterprises. Kuri was cleared in April for extradition from Arizona to face Mexican charges of child rape and corruption of minors, stemming from the accusations of seven girls and a boy who were filmed or photographed in sexually explicit activity. The charges also contend that Succar Kuri was an active member of an international child-pornography ring.

Taped conversations of Kuri bragging over lunch in Cancún of sexual experiences with girls as young as five have also shown up, and radio and television stations made the tapes public.

Subsequently, the Mexican Supreme Court appointed two special judges to investigate whether Camacho's civil rights were violated during her 20-hour extra-legal seizure from Cancún to Puebla. The Supreme Court's call for a special judicial investigation was only the fourth time in Mexican history that such a commission was convened. In the meantime, Cacho has initiated a suit against the Puebla state government, while concurrently defending herself in a libel suit brought by Nacif.

Cacho's book additionally contends that an unnamed former minister in PRI administrations during the 1990s attempted to compel prosecutors to dismiss the case and that comparable efforts were made by a highly placed politico in the Fox administration. 

Thus far, the case has proved to be a test for the uprightness and impartiality of the Mexican judicial system. It has also added fuel to the fire of those on both sides of the border who maintain that it demonstrates that political favors for the highly placed are a way of life for many politicians who undermine legitimate efforts to bring to justice perpetrators of the worst forms of exploitation in Mexico. 

In addition to the failed presidential campaign of Roberto Madrazo, fallout from the scandal was possibly a factor in the abysmal performance of the PRI, which lost half of its representation in Congress in the recent election. It was clear to many observers that Mexicans who went to the polls on July 2 declared their determination to be done with the cronyism that typified the 70 years of PRI domination of political life in Mexico.

Hopefully, the Succar Kuri case will draw attention to the efforts of Ana Rosa Payan, the DIF and other dedicated public servants and agencies that struggle daily to overcome the malevolent forces that would condemn helpless children to lives of desolation and pain. When one considers the 20,000 youngsters in Mexico who are subject to regular sexual exploitation and the 4,000 pages of child pornography that have shown up in the last five years on various internet sites, the task would appear overwhelming. Nevertheless, this is one noble cause that should summon the support of all those who decry the exploitation of the poor and weak by the powerful and ruthless. 

John Barham, who has had a long career in higher education as a professor and administrator in colleges and universities in Alabama, Texas, New York, Saudi Arabia and Missouri, has recently retired from the University of Missouri and has taken up full-time residence in San Miguel de Allende. He may be reached at barhamjw@yahoo.com