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Narco Violence in Chihuahua


Going over articles in Proceso on Mexico.  Here are some points from the July 3 edition.  Economia:  a report has been published by the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico indicating that most U.S. firms operating in Mexico regard themselves as insecure and are having to pay more and more in order to bolster their security with the effect of undermining their profitability.  The report also notes that firms are displeased with the lack of transparency and the amount of corruption emanating from the state.  The overall conclusion is that the combination of these factors is likely to limit economic growth in Mexico.  


Another significant item in the new is the murder of two jesuit priests by members of the Cartel Sinaloa, which has led the Catholic Church to openly criticize AMLO’s security strategy of abrazos, no balos, (hugs, not bullets), whatever this means. In Chihuahua, were the murders took place, the Cartel Jalisco de Nueva Generacion has announced its presence, strongly suggestng the possibility of armed conflict between rival cartels.  The Sinaloa Cartel has exercised impunity in Chihuahua for the previous eight years from the government of Cesar Duarte Jaquez to the present, which has provoked widespread displacement and uprooting of the population, particularly indigenous groups that have been targeted by Chueco’s (Jose Noriel Portillo Gil) sicarios.  

Some useful background on the killings of the Jesuits comes from an article by Ricardo Raphael which appeared in the Washington Post.  The killings of the Jesuits by Chueco were preceded by Chueco gunning down a tour guide in the Church of the Urique, the municipality that his criminal gang has dominated for the past 10 years.  The tour guide was murdered because he did not show enough deference to Chueco and the Jesuits were killed because they were administering last rites to the tour guide after he had been shot in the church.  Chueco appeared incoherent at the scene and demanded that another priest hear his confession.  Such is the tyranny of the local criminal boss.  Raphael notes the scope of Chueco’s control of Urique. He controls its commerce, runs drug trafficking operations, engages in illegal forestry and regularly terrorizes the local population, subjecting women and girls to sexual abuse.  Chueco is protected by the fiscalia (attorney general) of Chihuahua as well as various local politicians that have also participated in narco-trafficking.  The high profile murder to the Jesuits was proceded by Chueco killing an American professor, Patrick Braxton, in 2017, whom he mistook as a federal drug enforcement agent.  Raphael concludes his article by writing that: 

La situación que se vive en la Sierra Tarahumara es un reflejo de lo que sucede en muchas otras regiones del país. La maraña de complicidades político-criminales crece todos los días, mientras las autoridades responsables de atajar la violencia, cuando aparecen, lo hacen solamente para apaciguar el enojo social y resolver mediáticamente la crisis. Bien lo dijo el padre Patricio Ávila durante las exequias de los dos sacerdotes jesuitas: “Los abrazos ya no alcanzan para detener los balazos”. O, dicho en otros términos, la demagogia ya no sirve de escudo para nadie: ha pasado demasiado tiempo y la población continúa vulnerable, inerme y desamparada.

So what is the AMLO security strategy?  It is tempting to suggest that it is similar to the posture of the preceding administration of Enrique Pena Nieto- there is no war on drugs but rather a kind of political convivencia entre narcos y políticos in various regions of Mexico because, in part, the only actors that are able to access political power are the ones that are approved by the narcos in the first place.  This political equilibrium is occasionally disrupted by popular outrage, whereupon the state engages in a media spectacle of enforcement actions that only superficially address the underlying networks of criminality and political corruption.

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