The War that is Still Being Won by El Narco

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from Ríodoce

By: Ismael Boroquez
June 5, 2017

Now the Narco War has chosen one more "Pueblo Magico".

If these towns won that distinction for their beauty and history, they have lost it under the yoke of criminality and government complicity. Thus are El Fuerte, El Rosario and Mocorito. They are set in the quagmire of corruption and violence. Their beauty has vanished between the looting of their resources by the governments - both the PRI and the Panistas - and the violence that strikes them. 

El Fuerte, Sinaloa

El Fuerte has had the worst mayors in recent years, some of them with pending lawsuits for corruption. El Rosario, too. Now Mocorito, with a government of opposition to the PRI (PRI had governed that municipality all of its life), the choice of Sinaloan Party (PAS), is being debated amid the violence.

Of the "Pueblos Magicos" of Sinaloa, only Cosala is saved for now. The rest are becoming hellish  where life has been kidnapped by criminal gangs. Mocorito is now the scene of the most bloody clashes between Sinaloa Cartel cells that apparently do not have a common leader.

"Pueblo Magico" Cosala, Sinaloa

Two months ago we published a report on how and why the "Pueblos Magicos" of Sinaloa had become small, uninhabitable jungles, eaten away by the indolence of their governments and organized crime. And just last week, two women were killed in the crossfire of a shooting carried out by rival drug trafficking gangs in the municipal seat of Mocorito. The total tally of the fray, including the two women, was eight dead and a dozen injured, some attended clinics and others are in hiding.

Current PRI Governor of Sinaloa, Quirino Ordaz Coppel

This existed yesterday and it exists today, during the previous administration and in this one, with Malova, Mario Lopez Valdez, former PAN governor of Sinaloa and Quirino, Quirino Ordaz Coppel, the current PRI governor, who was elected in Jan 2017. There is no difference. What did the governor sell us then? What did he offer in terms of security that he is not fulfilling now? Sinaloa today, in terms of security, is worse than yesterday. And if the government of Mario López Valdez was complicit and ineffective, the current government is a horror.

The month of May was the last straw. Almost 190 homicides in its 31 days is a figure that should force the governor to stop and look in the mirror. He can not boast that all is well in Sinaloa with these figures. The crime of journalist Javier Valdez on May 15 was one of the highest impact crimes in the history of this country of Mexico, the state of Sinaloa, with reverberations felt around the world.  The blame goes to them; and the government can take the credit.

If Gov Quirino intended to discourage the violence by militarizing the commands of the police corporations, he was wrong. If he believed that filling the municipal and state patrols with      soldiers would intimidate the criminals, he made a mistake. In cities like Culiacán, Navolato, Guamúchil, Los Mochis and Mazatlán, the underworld has more armed men than those who can be deployed by the Army and Navy together. The criminal gunmen have more money and are more willing to die than the soldiers and marines. If the war is pursued blindly, this war will be won by El Narco, it has already been winning it.

The government has conventional armed forces, but 90 percent of its potential - including men, equipment and weapons - can not be used because they are not designed for guerilla style warfare in which the criminals wear bulletproof vests. In addition, El Narco's warriors fight guerilla style: they strike and they go away. They live in hiding. As in every war, they win and lose battles; but, in the end, they have been growing in every way: in men, in arms, in money, in logistics and infrastructure, in bases of support, in cultural penetration.

If you follow the record of violent events, seizures and confiscations, often the criminal commandos suddenly run into Military convoys, but not because of intelligence actions by the Military. After clashes between rival gangs, crime scenes are reported after bodies are removed  and vehicles and weapons abandoned. There is no intelligence work and if it exists it is not applied in strategies to combat the criminal organizations; there is only data that is recorded and archived.

 Not having a strategy is costing Sinaloa, the good Sinaloan citizens  and their government

 Ball and chain

To this we must add: the lies with which the governor has fed us; since he was questioned by the press about the legal framework in which he brought in the military to patrol the cities,  including units of the state and municipal police,  Gov Quirino said he had signed an agreement with SEDENA. However, this federal agency has denied that there is such an agreement, even clarifying that they do not make agreements with any state government, unless beforehand diagnoses had been made to be used to implement strategies against violence.

Wrong Way

The question now is for SEDENA: Why, if there are no agreements or strategies elaborated on previous diagnoses, are they sending in 2,000 elements to patrol? Based on what criteria, has Sedena put soldiers in with the police forces of the 18 municipalities and state corporations? Is this attitude more a political interest than a real concern for security in Sinaloa?

Black smoke

Three weeks have passed and as of now we know nothing about the investigations into the murder of Javier Valdez. Solidarity and concerns remain intact in Sinaloa, nationally and in many international circles, including at government levels in Europe and Latin America. Now it is about justice being done and the memory of Javier being served.