CIVIL CONFLICTS

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The Most Misunderstoof Witch in Mexico

By Joel Simon

Date: 12-10-96

Mexico's most notorious witch says she is also its most misunderstood witch. Francisca Zetina Chavez, once a spiritual advisor to Raul Salinas, is now under siege as Mexican prosecutors pressure her to "tell all" about the ex-president's brother's secret life and the body found on his property. PNS correspondent Joel Simon's book on the Mexican environmental crisis, "Endangered Mexico," will be published by Sierra Club Books next spring.

MEXICO CITY -- Zetina fingers the double eagle claw she wears around her neck, leans back in her kitchen chair and announces that she is the most misunderstood witch in Mexico.

Mexican prosecutors think otherwise. Two armed plainclothes police are permanently camped in front of her modest home in an extremely poor neighborhood at the very limits of the city's urban sprawl, and she has been interrogated dozens of times.

The authorities are convinced that Francisca Zetina Chavez has more to tell them about the body recently found on the property of Raul Salinas, brother of Carlos Salinas, former president of Mexico.

Zetina was the spiritual advisor to Raul Salinas. They met regularly, she says, and she offered him advice and guidance. But he never confessed to either of the two murders he is charged with -- and even if he had, the code of her profession would prevent her from discussing it.

Yes, she was at Salinas' ranch when they searched for the body, but only because of an anonymous tip.

And yes, she predicted the body would be unearthed, but only because she had sensed its vibrations.

"People think I know the truth," Zetina says. "But I am least able to say whether [Raul Salinas] did it or not."

In general, seeing a witch in Mexico City is no more unusual than seeing a therapist in New York. Still, the prosecutors' strong focus on her suggests the investigation has become nearly as bizarre as the alleged crimes. And that, in turn, helps explain why the current Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo dismissed his attorney general early this month.

Antonio Lozano Gracia -- the country's first attorney general from the opposition -- made headlines in February, 1995 when he ordered the arrest of Raul Salinas on charges of ordering the murder of politician Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Salinas' alleged accomplice, congressman Manuel Munoz Rocha, disappeared shortly after the murder and when a body was unearthed on Ruiz's property, Lozano publicly predicted that the remains would turn out to be those of the missing congressman.

But the fingers and lower jaw of the body had been removed, preventing identification. It had also undergone an autopsy. Salinas' attorney alleged that the body had been planted to frame his client -- a charge that took on more weight when the newspaper Excelsior reported that scientists had determined the body is not that of Munoz Rocha.

Early in December, both Lozano and the special prosecutor who led the Salinas investigation were forced to resign.

Zetina says she has tried to help prosecutors all along. She has answered their questions, helped locate a potential witness, and even used her psychic powers to try and locate the missing corpse. "They involved me against my principles in this chaos," she says.

Zetina says she first met Raul during his brother's presidential campaign when she helped arrange the objects in Raul's office in a manner proscribed to bring good fortune.

They met three times a month for several years. "We talked about his doubts, his idealism, his romanticism," Zetina recalled. "With all that he had -- power, money -- it wasn't enough. He had an emptiness inside."

Zetina cut off the relationship with Salinas when she began to sense he had "chosen the wrong path. "I saw that his door was stained with blood and I could not pass through it anymore."

On October 7, a boy delivered a manila envelope to Zetina's house. The envelope contained what purports to be an eyewitness account. The writer claims to have witnessed Raul Salinas murder Munoz Rocha with a baseball bat and describes where the body was buried. Zetina turned the letter over to the authorities.

Zetina says she is accustomed to working in the political world -- her own spiritual guide is assassinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy -- but that she resents the way the press has pictured her as a malevolent force. "I am a simple person, a humble person," she insists. "White magic is the only thing I practice."

She has even grown accustomed to the two cops in front of her house. She asked them if they would be leaving after Lozano was fired. "They said they didn't know what they were doing in front of the house," she says. "Only that they had been sent there."