Mexico Quietly Fighting Crime on All Fronts
La Jornada
A brief note: when I started reading La Jornada a few months ago, I noticed several things regarding Mexico’s deplorable crime problem—a problem deliberately introduced to the country by a succession of child-raping U.S. presidents. This probably began with Richard Nixon, but it was greatly accelerated by Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
The first thing I noticed was the high rates of murder, kidnappings and disappearances, which told me that the judiciary and law enforcement hadn’t been doing their job for several decades.
The second thing I noticed was that AMLO had introduced a sweeping reform of the judiciary, which will put all judgeships up for election next year. One of the reasons AMLO gave for the reform the fact that some judges were letting criminals off with light sentences.
The third thing I noticed was that some judges had started to give organized crime members high prison sentences. This isn’t just an indication that judges are getting serious about public safety, but prosecutors are also taking their jobs seriously.
Histórica condena de mil 650 años de prisión a integrantes del Cártel del Golfo
Condenan a 50 años de prisión a secuestradores
Hasta 60 años de cárcel a tres secuestradores
Sentencias hasta de 31 años a dos miembros del cártel del Poniente
México: Sentencian a 60 años de prisión a líder de cártel
You get the idea.
The last thing I noticed is that even though the Mexican government is energetically fighting crime and getting results, it doesn’t like to talk about it. I don’t know the reason for this, but it may have some connection to the country’s embarrassing practice of calling Claudia Sheinbaum “presidenta,” its belief that climate change is a thing, and its belief that anyone at all should be able to move to the U.S.A. and any attempt to stop them is cruel.
You tell me.
July 4, 2024
Mexico City. Omar García Harfuch highlighted that as Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection he will work in coordination with the armed forces and "the instruction of our president-elect is to strengthen the National Guard, which will be under the Secretariat of National Defense.
At the Interactive Museum of Economics, García Harfuch stressed that it is not about applying an “iron fist, but rather an effective and efficient hand.”
He highlighted that in this government [the six-year term of Manuel Andres Lopez Obrador] there have been “a great number of operations” to combat crime. “The Mexican Army and Navy have risked their lives. We have lost many comrades: state police, national guardsmen, from the Army, from the Navy.”
He indicated that security is a shared responsibility: it is not solely the federal government's responsibility, and insisted that the National Guard, which currently has 133,600 members, will be strengthened.
With the Secretariat of National Defense and the Secretariat of the Navy, “institutions that have always ensured the well-being of Mexicans, we will work tirelessly for the security of our country, but also with the 32 federal entities [states], since the security of our country is a shared responsibility and so we must all assume it.”
García Harfuch said that in the next six-year term, the intelligence and investigation capabilities of the Mexican state will also be strengthened, mainly through the National Intelligence Center. He committed to working to consolidate the Fourth Transformation with results, “above personal interest. We have a crucial mission, which is to accompany our future president and work together tirelessly to build a Mexico that is stronger, safer, more just, more prosperous for everyone.”
doing better
‘The Only Hope for America’
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