Dignitaries past and present this week paid their respects to former Jalisco Governor Flavio Romero de Velasco, who died in Guadalajara June 2 at the age of 90.
A native of Ameca, Jalisco, Romero de Velasco graduated with a law degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) at a young age, and served in many posts throughout a career devoted to politics, including three terms as a federal deputy, and governor of Jalisco from 1977 to 1983.
Known as a “hardliner” who applied the law to its fullest extent, Romero de Velasco clamped down with an iron fist on the rising left-wing guerrilla movement in Jalisco in the 1970s. He was also responsible for the reorganization of the Guadalajara city center, which concluded with the opening of the Plaza Tapatia in 1982.
Romero de Velasco was arrested in January 1998 and spent three and a half years in a maximum security prison after being accused of links with narcotics trafficking organizations. He was released in 2001 for lack of evidence.