Mexican journalist and political columnist who last worked for the daily Excélsior, one of the most-read newspapers in Mexico City. His direct reporting style in his column Red Privada (“Private Network”), which publicly exposed government and law enforcement corruption, organized crime, and drug trafficking, was distributed and read in over 200 newspapers across Mexico.
Buendía first wrote for La Nación, the official magazine of the National Action Party (PAN). After losing interest in the party, he left to work for La Prensa and became the editor-in-chief in 1960. He left the newspaper in 1963 and worked for several different media outlets in Mexico throughout the 1970s and ’80s, including the Mexico City-based newspapers El Universal and Excélsior. Buendía was recognized largely for his investigative reporting, and particularly for his coverage of the CIA’s covert operations in Mexico, the rise of ultra-rightwing groups, fraudulent businessmen, corruption in Mexico’s state-owned petroleum company Pemex, and the role of organized crime in Mexico’s political system. He was also famous for breaking news on controversial political subjects thanks to his access to top Mexican officials. His investigative reporting, however, angered many and made him a frequent target of death threats, which he took very seriously.
On the afternoon of 24 May 1984, Buendía left his office in Mexico City and was walking to his car when a man shot him from behind several times, killing him on the scene. For over five years, the murder case remained unsolved and with several irregularities, including the loss of evidence. In 1989, several members of the extinct Federal Security Directorate (DFS), Mexico’s top police force, were arrested for their involvement in the murder of Buendía. The murder case was closed after the perpetrators were arrested, but several journalists doubt the probe’s results and believe that the masterminds behind Buendía’s murder were never arrested.
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