After Latest Slaying, Web of Intrigue Emerges in Mexico : Crime: Killing tied to family connections, drug lords and grudge. Kinship still a mainstay of nation’s politics.

The assassination of Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 official in the ruling party, and the investigation of that crime on Monday graphically illustrated the complex web of kinship, friendship and patronage that typifies Mexican politics--and appears to have mired prominent politicians in this country in the drug trade.

Newspapers here, for example, have reported that Congressman Manuel Munoz Rocha--the highest-ranking politician implicated so far in the killing of Ruiz Massieu--pleaded with federal police, as he tried to negotiate his surrender, to consider political and family ties that had drawn him into last week’s bold daylight crime.

Even as this was occurring, members of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, sought to distance themselves from Munoz Rocha, the once-influential chairman of the Hydraulics Commission, which controls Mexico’s dams--meaning it has sway over critical areas such as hydroelectric power and water for irrigation.

“We regret that this man (Munoz Rocha) was ever admitted to the ranks of our party, because he does not deserve to be part of the PRI,” party Chairman Ignacio Pichardo told reporters.

As expected, the attorney general asked Congress to revoke Munoz Rocha’s legislative immunity so he can be prosecuted in the alleged plot to kill Ruiz Massieu.

Sources said it could take from two weeks to a month to strip him of that legal protection.

Police are still hunting Munoz Rocha and others allegedly involved in the killing.

Because of the slain man’s family ties, that crime has now come to be seen as a personal attack on President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and, according to one suspect, an attempt to undermine Mexico’s war on drugs.

Ruiz Massieu was a former Salinas brother-in-law, and his brother, Mario, is the assistant attorney general who has led a fierce crackdown on narcotics dealers.

But that is just one of many tangled, almost soap-opera-style relationships that have come to the surface thus far in the assassination investigation.

According to news reports here, Munoz Rocha has links to Abraham Rubio Canales, a jailed politician with a grudge against Francisco Ruiz Massieu. The ties between these two are said to involve the dating relationship between Munoz Rocha’s daughter and Rubio Canales’ son.

Meantime, Rubio Canales reportedly was angry with Ruiz Massieu, believing he may have helped send him to jail.

And Rubio Canales has ties to suspected drug lords via another son’s marriage. That son married the daughter of Raul Valladares; Valladares recently was arrested, and authorities have said they believe he is the No. 2 figure in the notorious Gulf cartel, which supplies as much as two-thirds of the cocaine that enters the United States from Mexico.

When Munoz Rocha turned to a trusted longtime aide for help in carrying out the killing, the aide enlisted his brother, according to the brother’s statement to police.

The brother also told police that he, in turn, relied on a network of paisanos, old acquaintances from near his hometown, to buy guns and recruit triggermen.

Family ties “are extremely important, because Mexicans rely in the political world--as they do in other worlds--on trust,” said Roderic Camp, a Tulane University political scientist who has written a book on political recruitment in Mexico. “One way to develop trust is to be related to someone. Society has not developed to the extent of trusting people on the basis of impersonal relationships.”

As a result, Camp estimates that a third of the prominent politicians he has interviewed for several books on Mexico’s political elite are related to other politicians who, in turn, have helped their careers. Salinas, for example, is the son of a former Cabinet secretary.

Camp noted that his estimate of the ties between politicians is probably conservative, because it does not take into account links by marriage, which are harder to trace.

Family ties are crucial in state and local politics, he said--even more so than at the national level, where the competition is stiffer. The reliance on family is also a point that distinguishes the “dinosaurs”--the Old Guard of Mexican politics--from the modern “technocrats.”

“This shows that these people have old attitudes about everything,” said Angeles Mastreta, author of “Mexican Bolero,” a novel based on the web of family and politics in 1940s Mexico. “These are 1940s attitudes in the 1990s.”

While technocrats’ relatives have been known to receive political appointments, other paths to power have opened in recent years, experts here said. Universities, for example, have become the most important new source of politicians, Camp said.

The old school tie, he noted, now is often reinforced with a traditional rite, compadrazgo --becoming a godparent to a friend’s child. The fundamental basis of academically linked relationships, though, remains the student-teacher or classmate bond.

Among city dwellers, private clubs also have become a way to forge links that can lead to jobs in government--especially since memberships have become perks for top bureaucrats.

The new paths to power have gained in importance here as reformers have passed laws making it illegal for public servants to hire relatives.

The regulations, however, have had a limited effect on preventing politicians from promoting godchildren’s careers.

Those who prefer the old system appear to have found new, dangerous allies. What is most terrifying, said Mastreta, is “one politician threatening another with his relatives who are drug traffickers.”

It is particularly striking that one victim of this new bonding may have been Ruiz Massieu, said Raymundo Riva Palacio, columnist for the independent newspaper Reforma. Ruiz Massieu was among those most critical of traffickers’ efforts to penetrate politics, saying openly that one state governor and his alleged drug-dealer brothers “ought to be in jail.”

The Scorecard (Southland Edition, A14)

This is the cast of people in the alleged plot to kill reform-minded Mexican politicians:

Francisco Ruiz Massieu: The assassination victim, who was the late general secretary of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and former governor of the state of Guerrero, and was slated to become majority leader in the next Congress.

Mario Ruiz Massieu: Francisco Ruiz Massieu’s brother and the assistant attorney general in charge of federal anti-narcotics enforcement.

Daniel Aguilar Trevino: Alleged triggerman in the slaying.

Carlos Angel Cantu: Neighbor of Aguilar Trevino, who allegedly accompanied him to the murder scene.

Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez: Suspect who allegedly detailed to police a plot to kill reform-minded politicians. He said that he bought the gun used in the killing and recruited Aguilar Trevino and Cantu.

Fernando Rodriguez Gonzalez: Brother of Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez who allegedly identified Francisco Ruiz Massieu for Aguilar Trevino. Also a top aide to an important congressman.

Manuel Munoz Rocha: The congressman Fernando Rodriguez Gonzalez worked for. Police have requested the revocation of his congressional immunity.

Abraham Rubio Canales: Imprisoned former aide to Francisco Ruiz Massieu, political ally of Munoz Rocha and father-in-law of son of Raul Valladares.

Raul Valladares: Arrested earlier this year by Mario Ruiz Massieu on drug trafficking charges. Believed to be lieutenant of Juan Garcia Abrego.

Juan Garcia Abrego: Suspected head of the Gulf cartel, a cocaine smuggling ring linked to Colombia’s Cali cartel.

Maria Eugenia Ramirez Arau: Sister of Fernando and Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez, who is believed to have known about the plot.

Roberto Angel Ramirez Arau: Husband of Maria Eugenia, who lent his car to his brother-in-law, Fernando Rodriguez Gonzalez, the day of the killing.

Jesus Sanchez: Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez’s driver, who was supposed to drive the getaway car, but panicked.

Jose Pascual Alvarez: Municipal policeman from San Carlos, Tamaulipas--county seat of Aguilar Trevino’s hometown--who allegedly sold the gun used in the slaying to Jorge Rodriguez Gonzalez for 2,000 pesos, about $600, and an AK-47 for 4,000 pesos, about $1,200.

Source: Times Mexico City Bureau