Tagged: Mexico

The Mexican military trotted out Daniel Jesus Elizondo Ramírez or "El Loco," yesterday, to face the media. They accused the Zeta leader of directing the mutilation and beheading of 49 people.

Earlier this month, the bodies were dumped at the entrance of the town of San Juan.

The AP reports that Ramírez was directed by the top Zeta leaders to dump the bodies and hang banners around the country that shunned responsibility.

When I heard that the Mexican literary legend Carlos Fuentes died Tuesday at 83, I remembered a long, easygoing interview I did with him years ago. We talked about many things — including what epitaph he wanted carved on his tombstone.

It was the autumn of 1995 and I was a reporter at The Washington Post, assigned to write a profile of the elegant, eloquent Fuentes. I draw on that story now, for twice-told tales worth telling.

Carlos Fuentes was the son of a Mexican diplomat and spent years living abroad, including in the United States. But Mexico — the country, its people and politics — was central to his writing.

Fuentes, one of the most influential Latin American writers, died Tuesday at a hospital in Mexico City at the age of 83. He was instrumental in bringing Latin American literature to an international audience, and he used his fiction to address what he saw as real-world injustices.