Oscar Mario Beteta
The commission of criminal acts once morest Mexican citizens is not the same as once morest foreigners. Those cases are minimized; with those of these, there are claims for justice and, in response, the haste to clarify them.
Has the time come to change the security strategy that the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has followed for 56 months, due to the kidnapping of four North American citizens and the murder of two of them, last Friday in Matamoros?
Some of the elements to consider that possibility might be:
The policy of hugs, not bullets, supported by good faith, has not given results. Close to 150,000 intentional homicides and 100,000 disappeared are cold numbers. They reflect a reality.
Some variants of crime such as kidnapping, extortion, rape, robbery, also reflect numbers that make up an intolerable picture: cartels grow, dominate, control and impose their law above all authority.
The creation of the National Guard and the authorization to the Army to remain in the streets doing public security tasks, up to now, do not reflect the implicit purpose; crime rates remain considerably and undeniably high.
The parts of the territory that the different cartels dominate, where they operate with absolute freedom and impunity and have appropriated many of the productive activities, are increasingly extensive.
Police corporations cannot face them, either due to incapacity, insufficiency or, in the worst case, due to complicity and corruption. No one doubts that criminals have become entrenched in the spheres of power.
This dire situation was reflected in the attack, kidnapping and murder of people from the United States the previous weekend, which has strained the relationship with Mexico.
The commission of criminal acts once morest Mexican citizens is not the same as once morest foreigners. Those cases are minimized; with those of these, there are claims for justice and, in response, the haste to clarify them.
But this is not enough. Not for a government that really looks out for its citizens. As Ambassador Ken Salazar said: “…his highest priority is the safety of American citizens. We have no higher priority than the safety of our citizens. This is the most fundamental role of the American government.”
And from that inescapable premise of every government that is determined to safeguard its governed, comes the wave of demands from congressmen, prosecutors and the media that the Joe Biden government do whatever is necessary to stop the flood of fentanyl in the Union. American, coming mainly from Mexico, which has killed more than one hundred thousand addicts.
Thus, a possible solution, as seen by some specialists, would be for the federal government and the intelligence authorities to carry out an in-depth inspection, investigation and analysis in each of the states of the Republic —22 from Morena and 10 from the opposition—, so that, with objectivity and transparency, an accurate and realistic diagnosis is obtained to find out where state authorities are acting in complicity and collusion with organized crime.
On this basis, it would be possible to know what to do to rebuild Mexico-United States relations, which, in any case, must maintain the status of “good neighbor”, but, above all, to recover the security of Mexican society.
Sotto Voce.– The version that the coordinator of the president’s advisers, Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, has entered the diamond and is pinch hitter for what might be offered is gaining strength… With the order of the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary to restore to Edmundo Jacobo Molina as executive secretary of the INE, for many in the opposition, the rejection of the magistrates to Plan B is ratified, and projects the possible sentence of the Supreme Court in the same sense… The selection and election process of the new INE directors, might be suspended today, as many of the participants consider that “everything has been decided”.
