DEA Agent's Slaying Motivates Sister

Drugs: Myrna Camarena, whose brother's murder inspired Red Ribbon Week, has
taken up his cause.

SIMI VALLEYFor Myrna Camarena, Red Ribbon Week isn't just seven days of
donning ribbons or wearing pins with antidrug messages. The 43yearold
San Diego secretary is connected to the growing antidrug observance in the
most personal way.

After all, it was the violent death of her big brother Enrique "Kiki"
Camarena by drug traffickers that sparked the creation of this national
event. The government's examination of the 1985 murder of her brother, a
federal drug enforcement agent, has become one of the most extensive in
U.S. history.

Since his death, the softspoken woman, whose No. 1 fear had once been
speaking in public, has been on a crusade. Myrna Camarena flies across the
nation in late October each year to tell the story of her brother, who was
kidnapped, tortured and murdered at age 37 while working in Guadalajara,
Mexico.

"Sometimes Red Ribbon Week tends to get commercialized because the kids
aren't aware of the history of it and neither are the teachers," said
Camarena, adding that her main mission is to keep the memory of her brother
alive. "I don't want this to get so commercialized that nowhere is his name
mentioned."

While fighting jet lag after making speeches during the past nine days for
schools and organizations in Arizona, Washington, New York, Michigan and
Pennsylvania, Camarena still managed the last leg of her national tour by
making her only California appearance Thursday night at Simi Valley's Royal
High School.

Camarena said she sometimes has to take a deep breath before recounting the
painful tale of her brother.

When authorities located her brother's body, Camarena was performing
secretarial work for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Istanbul,
Turkey. Her boss said he had a message for her that he wanted to deliver
personally. "They said Bill is going to come over, and I thought, why can't
he tell me over the phone," Camarena recalled. "Why would he come over on
Sunday for a workrelated matter?"

When her boss told her that Enrique had been killed, Camarena passed out,
she said. Her brother, who had been missing a month after being kidnapped
while walking to his car near the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara, was found
dead in a park, his body so decomposed that dental records were required to
identify him.

Witnesses had stated that Enrique Camarena had been tortured with burning
cigarettes and beaten after his kidnapping.

For Myrna Camarena, her seven other siblings and her parents, the death of
Enrique was almost too much to take. Her parents had already endured losing
another son during the Vietnam War in 1965.

But Camarena said parents in Virginia and California, as a gesture of
support, began wearing red ribbons in honor of the slain DEA agent. Within
a few years, the final week in October was set aside by schools and civic
organizations to emphasize an antidrug message.

Despite her initial shyness, Camarena has since made hundreds of public
appearances. During one early speech at a Texas school, she froze with
stage fright and had to be prodded to speak by her mother, who was there.

Yet, her theme was always clearto use her brother's death as a concrete
example of someone greatly affected by drug dealing and drug use.

"I tell them: 'Drugs don't respect anyone, anywhere,' " Camarena said. "It
can affect your family just like it affected mine, and it is very, very
devastating."

After one speech in Portland, Ore., last year, Camarena experienced a deep
sense of gratification. Someone had mailed her an anonymous letter on a
pink paper that read: "Because of what happened to your brother, I have
stopped dealing drugs."

"I got a little emotional," she said.

Ventura County educators said they appreciated Camarena's willingness to
help educate students here about the origin of Red Ribbon Week.

"When we hear about things like that, it helps us to put it in perspective
and to understand we're part of a larger picture," said County Supt. of
Schools Charles Weis.

It may be especially important to point out the history of the event
considering that the focus of Red Ribbon Week is evolving into much more
than an antidrug week.

"At the younger elementary grades, they're really talking about healthy
bodies and wellness, and the whole thing of eating right is also part of
Red Ribbon Week," Weis said. "If we can talk to young kids about doing good
things for their body and eating right and being healthy and well,
obviously that's the antithesis of being a drug user."

For Camarena, her desire is to complete the task her brother set out to do.

"He was killed before he could finish it, and that was to one day make this
place a drugfree world," Camarena said. "He's gone, but I'm here to fini
him."

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