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Narco Violence in Zacatecas

Narco-Violence in Mexico


These are more notes from Processo. This time from the July 10 edition (20). The Catholic Church, reeling after the killings of Jesuit priests in Chihuahua, has declared AMLO’s security strategy a failure and have convened a process of prayer and dialog among all actors in civil society to find a way to security peace.  AMLO has rejected this call to change directions on security policy and has added the church is aligned with the oligarchy and, if they are so upset with the narco violence now, why weren’t they equally indignant about the massacres of the Calderon era.  Church leaders answer back by pointing out the organizational efforts they are already making to stop the violence by means of providing aid to the victims of violence and to refugees of violence, while also engaging in efforts to encourage reconciliation between the violent and the violated.  They add that things are worse now than in the neoliberal era with organized crime demanding protection money from Churches so they can conduct their services. 


Other Scenes  of Violence


Proceso (July 10, 30) reports on the Fresnillo, Zacactecas.  Portions of the city are deserted and the houses are riddled with bullets.  The reasons for the violence are obscure, but crime related. For example, an attack on a pizzeria:  was it because the owner refused to pay protection money or one of the employees was engaged in organized crime?  Morena party leaders in Zacatecas point to a 15.5% decline in murders and 30% decline in kidnappings in comparison to the previous year, but narco-traffkcing and extortion have risen (2.2% and 34%, respectively).  The party leaders went on to denounce the idea, proposed by the Catholic church, of changing the security strategy by means of offering amnesty in exchange for disarmament.  No deals with organized crime, insist government officials.  Why not, I wonder?  Hasn’t this been the historical norm in Mexico?  Narcos are tolerated by the state and even recruited as clients of the state in an exchange of protection for drug money.  Benjamin Smith, in The Dope, describes the historical emergence of these sorts of linkages between narcos and the state as the arrangements that have shifted historically from the local to the national level.  But now the state is overwhelmed and compromised by the sheer scale and power of organized crime in Mexico. Or, to put this in terms of Gilman’s twin insurgency, it is overwhelmed by the criminal insurgency. 

One of the problems of disarmament, incidentally, is the continuous flow of arms from the United States into Mexico, the topic of Ione Grillo’s most recent book. It is an example of how insecurity in one region radiates outwards, generating insecurity in surrounding regions. 

Returning to the Zacatecas, the killings continued unabated while the secretary of state provided his report.  There were nine murders reported in Fresnillo during this time.  And things are deteriorating in the neighboring municipality of Jerez, where there are now open, armed confrontations between rival criminal groups. 

Proceso also reports on the town of Apulo (July 10, p. 26 on the border between Zacatecas and and Jalisco where the Cartel de Nueva Generación de Jalisco (CNGJ)has entered the scene, threatening the security of the mayor, Yaneth Morales Huizar, who is protected by the Sinaloa Cartel.  On June 24, CNGJ gunmen opened file on a building where the mayor was conducting a meeting.  The attack was captured on security cameras, but the Morena governor of Zacatecas then denied that such an attack had occurred.  Later the government characterized the incident as a conflict between rival criminal groups.  But back in 2019, Morales’ husband had been kidnapped by CNGJ.  There follows in the article an account of how Morales stood for reelection in 2021, but, given the violence afflicting the region, there was no campaigning.  The dynamic here is that the CNGJ are trying to keep out the Sinaloa Cartel.  In July 2021, they established checkpoints around Apulo in an effort to keep their rivals out.  The CNGJ has been operating with impunity in Apula on account of the withdrawal of the National Guard.  Local government services - such as water provision and garbage collection - have been shut down.

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