MEXICO CITY — It sounds like a Hollywood thriller.
A secret organization born in the Cold War and determined to overthrow an authoritarian government outlives the regime and begins to undermine a democratically elected administration in hopes of installing a modern theocracy.
Luis Paredes Moctezuma, former mayor of Puebla in central Mexico, said that very scenario exists in the administration of President Felipe Calderón and the National Action Party, or PAN.
Paredes asserted that the party has been slowly infiltrated by the radical group over decades.
Paredes, a PAN member, said he spent three decades in the secret group El Yunque, or The Anvil, and participated in an ongoing conspiracy "to restore the rule of God" through an ultraconservative Roman Catholic government.
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"El Yunque is more dangerous than the narcos," Paredes said, referring to the government's struggle to recover large swaths of Mexico from drug cartels.
Hundreds of Yunque members are now in the bureaucracy, and they control four state governments, he said.
Paredes said El Yunque established cells in the U.S. 15 years ago, as university-educated professionals migrated and put down roots. "They're in Dallas, in Boston, in Washington, D.C., in Los Angeles, in Miami," he said.
"It's real, and it has power"
Not all political analysts or PAN members believe that El Yunque exists or that it has significant power within the ruling party or the government. Officials named as Yunque adherents by former members deny any connection.
Those who believe in the group's power, however, warn that Calderón could be distracted from the drug fight and badly needed economic reforms if El Yunque touches off a divisive struggle within the PAN as the party prepares to elect a new leader next year.
"Of course it's a real group, and it has power," said political commentator Ricardo Aleman. "At this moment, it has managed to maintain control of the party. I think that if Felipe Calderón has not cut deals already (with El Yunque), that he will do so."
The U.S. has praised Calderón's war against drug cartels. And the president's high approval ratings have allowed him to stave off opposition criticism for plunging the military into the drug fight.
A PAN scandal could threaten that, analysts and self-proclaimed former El Yunque members said. "If the moderate wing of the PAN breaks from the radical wing of the PAN, then an internal war will break out, and Calderón will be the first to suffer," Aleman said.
But like all conspiracy theories, this one has doubters.
"I have never found anyone who admits to being a member of El Yunque," said Sergio Sarmiento, a longtime political commentator who works in radio, TV and newspapers.
"All I see are attacks from the left. It's an easy way to dismiss someone."
The fight within the PAN is as much about personalities as it is about ideology. Calderón, a centrist, and party president Manuel Espino, seen as further to the right, have been feuding since before the presidential election a year ago.
The PAN, Sarmiento added, has always been a rightist party with religious overtones and does not need a secret group to impose those values.
At the party's national assembly in early June, Paredes handed out 5,000 T-shirts with the inscription "Yunque no, PAN yes," injecting the group into the party's debate.
To coincide with that assembly, a newspaper in Leon, Guanajuato, published an eight-story report on El Yunque, naming its alleged leaders and quoting politicians who said the group had taken over the PAN in Guanajuato.
Among those named as Yunque leaders in the state were Gov. Juan Manuel Oliva; his chief of staff, Gerardo Mosqueda; and state Education Secretary Alberto Diosdado. Contacted by telephone, representatives of the three men played down the report and said their bosses had no comment.
Enrique Gomez, publisher of the paper, said El Yunque's control of the state government is an open secret in Guanajuato.
"The PAN has been invaded by a parasite called El Yunque," Gomez said. "The danger here is that they are fascists."
Group called anti-Semitic
The group greatly admires the late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and is anti-Semitic and hard-line Catholic, the publisher said.
Guanajuato legislators under El Yunque's control tried to pass a law banning abortion even in cases of rape, Gomez said. Public outcry killed the proposal.
Likewise, he said, public schools in the state have more limited sex education than even mainstream Catholic schools.
The most extensive work on El Yunque has been done by an investigative reporter from the magazine Proceso, Alvaro Delgado, who won the 2003 National Journalism Prize for his book "El Yunque: The Ultra-right in Power." A follow-up book, "The Army of God," was published in 2004.
In both, former members describe how El Yunque formed anti-communist and pro-Catholic front groups that integrated themselves into the party over decades.
Delgado said PAN leaders have long struggled with the group's participation in the party: On the one hand, it helped the PAN build a base; on the other, El Yunque is anti-democratic.
Calderón is seen as a foe of the group, although people close to him have been accused of being Yunque leaders, including chief of staff Cesar Nava, a possible candidate for party president. Nava has denied knowledge of the group's existence. A spokesman for Calderón's office did not return calls for comment.
In interviews with suspected Yunque members, Delgado said, the subjects walked the fine line between not committing the sin of lying and maintaining the secrecy of the group.
Espino, the current PAN president, playfully told Delgado "maybe I am" a member of the group, during an interview for the 2004 book.
"They obviously appear as reasonable people, but they continue to hide their real plan," Delgado said. "They continue to be secret because their plan is in violation of the Mexican Constitution and its laws, which establish a secular state."
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El Yunque
El Yunque, or The Anvil, has a long history in Mexico:
• Begun in Puebla in 1953 as a student movement to fight communism and liberal government, its ultimate goal is the creation of a Roman Catholic state.
• Through the establishment of a series of anti-communist, pro-religious front groups, El Yunque expands its membership on college campuses in the 1960s and 1970s.
• During the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s, El Yunque members become leaders of business organizations battered by the government's erratic economic policies.
• Mostly through front groups, El Yunque integrates into the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, during the opposition party's growth period in the 1980s and 1990s.
• With the PAN's victory in the 2000 presidential election, Yunque members move into government posts and solidify their presence at the highest levels of the PAN.
SOURCE: Luis Paredes Moctezuma,, former mayor of Puebla; Alvaro Delgado, author of "El Yunque" and "The Army of God"
