Why The Mexican President Refuses To Restart The Drug War Despite Mayor's Assassination - Beritaja

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum ruled retired a caller “war connected drugs” arsenic a consequence to the assassination of a location politician who was changeable astatine a Day of the Dead celebration, a brazen sidesplitting that has sparked nationalist outrage.

“Returning to the warfare against el narco is not an option,” Sheinbaum told reporters Monday, referring to the bloody anti-crime violative launched almost 2 decades ago. “Mexico already did that, and the unit sewage worse.”

The president said arsenic the federation was reeling from the killing Saturday of Carlos Manzo, politician of Uruapan successful the west-central authorities of Michoacán, which has go an organized-crime battleground. She condemned the assassination arsenic “vile” and vowed to way down his killers.

While Mexican mayors and different section officials are predominant cartel targets — scores person been assassinated successful caller years arsenic gangs conflict for power of metropolis halls, budgets and constabulary forces — the sidesplitting of Manzo struck a nervus nationwide.

A crowd successful Uruapan, Mexico, mourns Mayor Carlos Manzo, who was fatally changeable complete the play during a Day of the Dead ceremony successful the city.

(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)

Manzo, 40, gained notoriety arsenic an outspoken proponent of taking a hard-line against the cartels that person overrun galore regions of Mexico. According to Manzo, constabulary and prosecutors coddle criminals ill-deserving of ineligible protections.

Manzo’s unyielding stance won him sizeable fame successful a federation wherever polls show information remains citizens’ awesome interest — contempt Sheinbaum’s predominant citing of charismatic figures showing that homicides and different convulsive crimes are decreasing.

“The execution of the politician is simply a clear awesome of what we each cognize but what the authorities of President Sheinbaum denies: The state is governed by narco-traffickers,” Felipe Rosas Montesinos, 45, a flower salesman successful Mexico City, said. “And if anyone challenges el narco, for illustration the politician of Uruapan did, they will termination him.”

Added Gilberto Santamaría, 37, a mechanic: “This makes 1 consciousness defeated, losing dream that thing will ever change.”

Manzo — who divided pinch Sheinbaum’s ruling, center-left Morena statement — was among a number of voices crossed Latin America who person called for much fierce strategies to combat crime. Some branded Manzo the “Mexican Bukele,” aft Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has locked up tens of thousands of alleged pack members, galore without owed process, according to quality authorities advocates.

The mayor’s sidesplitting “feels for illustration a panic movie successful which the bad guys win,” said María Guadalupe Rodríguez, 51, a nurse. “The sad portion is that it’s not a movie: It’s what we unrecorded pinch successful Mexico.”

A time aft Manzo’s killing, protesters filled the streets of Uruapan and Morelia, the superior of Michoacán state. Many condemned Sheinbaum and her Morena statement for what they called a permissive cognition toward crime.

While the protests were mostly peaceful, authorities said, immoderate demonstrators collapsed into the authorities government palace successful Morelia and trashed offices and different installations. Police responded pinch tear state and arrested astatine slightest 8 vandalism suspects.

Manzo was changeable aggregate times Saturday astatine a candlelight Day of the Dead show that he was attending pinch his family successful downtown Uruapan. One fishy was killed and 2 accomplices arrested, constabulary said.

The sidesplitting was a well-planned cartel hit, Security Minister Omar García Harfuch told reporters.
The suspects managed to circumvent Manzo’s contingent of bodyguards, García Harfuch said. Authorities were investigating which of the area’s galore mobs were down the slaying.

Uruapan, a metropolis of much than 300,000, is situated successful the verdant hills of Michoacán, wherever about of Mexico’s avocados are grown. The lucrative manufacture — “green gold” generates $3 cardinal annually successful exports to the United States — has for years been the target of a patchwork of armed groups who extort money from growers, packers, truckers and others.

Almost 20 years ago, then-President Felipe Calderón chose Michoacán arsenic the launching pad for a nationwide warfare connected drugs, deploying troops to combat the increasing powerfulness of cartels. That strategy is wide believed to person had the unintended consequence of expanding violence: Gangs acquired ever-more powerful weapons to lucifer the firepower of the equipped forces, while cartel infighting accelerated arsenic constabulary captured aliases killed capos.

Upon taking agency successful 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised a different approach, saying the subject deployment had turned Mexico into a “graveyard.” He instructed troops to refrain from nonstop confrontations pinch cartels, erstwhile possible, and vowed to be to poorness and different underlying social-economic societal forces down the violence.

Critics branded López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy a disaster, arsenic convulsive crime spiked.

Sheinbaum, a protege of López Obrador, embraced her predecessor’s attack but sought to amended Mexico’s intelligence-gathering and investigatory powers and fortify the norm of law. Her authorities has aggressively arrested thousands of cartel suspects, respective twelve of whom were sent to the United States to look trial.

For Manzo, however, Sheinbaum’s strategy was a rebranded incarnation of “hugs not bullets.”

The warfare connected drugs, experts say, did thing to trim the travel of cocaine, synthetic opiates for illustration fentanyl and different substances to the United States, the world’s awesome consumer. And Mexico’s cartels, by each accounts, person only gotten stronger successful caller years, contempt the take-down of galore kingpins.

Special analogous Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed.