Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Behind that red ribbon celebrated in schools is a story

The last week of October again marked National Red Ribbon Week observances all over the U.S. Locally, many of you who have children in public schools again participated in the yearly ritual of promoting in your children the positive message of a drug-free lifestyle.

Local law enforcement did their part, providing educational awareness on the ills and destruction caused by illegal drugs. Red ribbons were given to local students marked with logos of a sheriff’s office, police department, or National Guard.

Maybe in a local newspaper there was an article on Red Ribbon Week, an occasional reference to a drug-free rally, or a speech or program by a local official, a deputy with a drug dog, or shiny decorated police car. But somehow in all the positive messages Red Ribbon Week brings every year, the origination and reality of what led to the founding of Red Ribbon Week in 1986 seems to get lost. And it is probably the most important message of all, one of personal sacrifice, devotion and duty to country, and willingness to sacrifice all in its defense.

DEA Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena never asked to be a hero. He only wanted to make difference. Growing up poor in Mexico he wondered if he would get the chance. When he was 9 years old, his family moved to the U.S. and joined the army of migrant workers in the fields of Southern California.

As he picked peaches and plums, he watched other children head off for school and longed for a seat on the bus or classroom. When he got his chance, he made the best of it.

He learned English and became a good student. He excelled in sports. He worked on his school yearbook. He was even voted best all-around senior. Upon graduation from high school, Kiki joined the U.S. Marine Corps and began a career in the service of his adopted country.

Upon his discharge from the USMC, he became a fireman, a police officer and then having seen many of his friends succumb to the evils of illegal drugs, he then became a Special Agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

He wanted to make a difference. He had no way of knowing just how much of a difference he would make, nor did he know the staggering and tragic price it would take on him, his family, his friends, and his country.

In 1985, Kiki was posted to the DEA office in Guadalajara, Mexico. He quickly made his mark. His drive and devotion to duty was unshakable. His effectiveness in being able to cultivate informants, seize drugs and make arrests gained him some powerful enemies.

One particular seizure credited to Kiki still stands as the single largest seizure of marijuana in U.S./Mexico history. A field, thousands of acres in scope, whose poison was all destined for the streets of our country. It was this case that finally caught the attention of powerful Mexican drug dealers and corrupt Mexican police and government officials in their employ.

In March of 1985, Kiki was leaving the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara on his way to meet his wife for lunch. A car of Mexican police officers, men he knew, worked with and trusted, pulled up. They forced him into the car in haste and fled. This was the last time anyone saw Kiki alive.

For days he was tortured for information, given stimulants by a corrupt doctor so that his mutilated and bruised body would not succumb to death so that the torture and interrogation could continue. Death did not come quickly.

A month later, his mutilated and decaying corpse was found on a ranch outside Guadalajara.

The barbaric and brutal nature of his death would touch the nerve of an entire country. The brazen and outright kidnapping, torture and murder of a U.S. agent in Mexico would have ramifications for years to come and would change forever the nature and scope of this country’s drug enforcement strategy towards its southern neighbor.

When Kiki was returned to the U.S., his casket carried off a military aircraft by a USMC/DEA honor guard, his family and friends wore red ribbons to symbolize their outrage at his death.

As his story spread across the U.S., others also bore red ribbons on their clothing, their homes, their businesses and their schools, to show their outrage, and to remember a fallen law officer killed at the hands of ruthless and barbaric drug lords who operated with impunity inside Mexico, but in months and years later, would feel the sting of American justice as many of them were arrested and brought to trial in the U.S., over the objections of a corrupt Mexican government.

So now you know the story of the red ribbon. An act of Congress in 1986 declared one week in October Red Ribbon Week, but it was an act of violence against one U.S. agent in a foreign land that stirred defiance and outrage of an entire country against drug trafficking and drug lords who seek to destroy us by importing their poison to our streets.

So, next year when your kids come home from school declaring that it is Red Ribbon Week and they have to wear sun glasses to school to “shade out drugs,” or a team shirt to “team up against drugs,” or a cap to “put a cap on drugs,” remind them of the story of DEA Agent Kiki Camarena, his devotion to duty and country, and how all he wanted to do was make a difference, and at a terrible price, became a hero.

Frank Hidalgo

Fayetteville, Ga.

[Hidalgo is a DEA agent in the Atlanta Field Office and a resident of Fayetteville.]