The recently published interview between Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Sean Penn, while being presented as heroic, is in fact just perpetuating Mexico’s sickly worship of drugs, violence and mass murder. Penn, a Hollywood artist and activist wrote an article for Rolling Stone where he details his meeting with Guzman Loera, a cold, calculating criminal who has been turned into an idol by mainstream media.
The meeting took place in Mexico while Guzman was on the run from Mexican law enforcement. Mexican authorities have since stated that Penn is under investigation over the meeting.
Penn’s meeting with Guzman was made possible thanks to Kate Del Castillo, a soap opera starlet who has gained notoriety by playing a female drug kingpin on television. Del Castillo’s character has helped promote and idolize the lifestyle of a kingpin rather than show the pain and suffering that narco-violence has brought to Mexico.
As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, many in Mexico and now Penn, view Guzman Loera as a benign Robin Hood type figure, when in fact he is responsible for the majority of the blood that has been shed in Mexico.
Just his capture this week resulted in hours of firefights as his security detail squared off against Mexican marines. Armed with assault rifles, .50 caliber rifles and rocket launchers, the gunmen tried to hold off the military while their boss escaped through the sewers. Breitbart Texas published some of the leaked photos of the carnage that took place during the effort to capture the “hero” narco.
The main reason for the bloodshed in Mexico since the early part of 2000‘s comes from Guzman’s efforts to take control of the entire Northern Mexican border with the United States. While the expansion has been partly successful, the land-grab has resulted in thousands of deaths as rival cartels and former allies have at different times taken arms to protect their turf.
El Chapo’s attempt to take Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, led that massive drug trafficking corridor to become the Murder Capital of the world. The violence came when El Chapo’s forces clashed with the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, also known as the Juarez Cartel.
Even before Juarez, El Chapo and his then allied the Beltran Leyva cartel had unsuccessfully tried to take over the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. That effort was met with a violent response from the Gulf Cartel and their enforcers Los Zetas. Gruesome executions and fierce clashes between convoys of gunmen became a regular sight.
To this day, as reported by Breitbart Texas, Guzman’s criminal organization, the Sinaloa Cartel, is responsible for 50 percent of the heroin that is currently being consumed in America and the violence that the drug epidemic has brought. The Sinaloa Cartel has managed to beat out heroin giants like the Asian mafias.
The ever increasing heroin epidemic has resulted in the number of overdose deaths in America having spiked 244 percent from 2007 to 2013, as Breitbart News reported.
Despite the drug epidemic that he supplies and the bloodshed that his forces bring about, Penn seems to think that Guzman Loera remains a figure worthy of nice write-ups and biographical movies.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.