Interview with Cuitláhuac Garcia, Governor-elect of Veracruz

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from La Silla Rota

                         

Despite the degree of corruption and insecurity, the governor-elect advised that the armed forces will not be on the streets, only in exceptional cases

by MIGUEL ÁNGEL LEÓN CARMONA

Xalapa, Ver.- For Cuitláhuac García Jiménez, Veracruz experienced two transitions in recent years marked by corruption and insecurity, to the extent that it is necessary to declare the state a "humanitarian crisis" in order to create a savings and spending program for victims.

In addition, the governor- elect says the violence will not be faced with the Armed Forces, except in exceptional cases in which he will ask for the help of President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

It is 4:30 p.m. in a liaison office of Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (MORENA) in Xalapa. The elected leader gets ready for an interview with LA SILLA ROTA and at the same time organizes with four collaborators -no older than 30 years- his next event on the agenda, a talk with Sara Ladrón de Guevara González, rector of his alma mater, the Veracruzana University (UV). 

Already settled in an office decorated with photographs of his meetings - always taken by the hand of López Obrador - Cuitláhuac sits behind a desk to talk about the challenges he will face starting December 1, 2018. The images on the walls foretell a close link of the state with the federation. 

With that point of view, García Jiménez plans to work on two words that were the common denominator during his tours throughout the country: "insecurity and corruption".

We are going to punish acts of corruption to put officials before the authorities.

There were corruption issues in this administration - the governor-elect is asked - LA SILLA ROTA documented the case of PAN state leader José Mancha Alarcón, who was benefited with more than 70 million pesos from state works. How do you assess this case in this government? 

I am going to be respectful of the authority that each power has. The prosecutor's offices and soon the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor will have to investigate the case; if they are not the investigating bodies, then ORFIS [Entidades de Fiscalización Nacional], depending on the resources up to the ASF [Auditoría Superior de la Federación]. According to rule of law; it is the investigating prosecutors who put the presumed culprit before the judge and the judges determine the evidence (...) They will have to act.

Your party member, Senator Rocío Nahle Garcia, says she will seek investigation of the José Mancha case, what will you do? 

The legislative branch does have the authority to go and denounce and seek public officials (...) it will remain in their hands. 

With this subject you are learning that you should not repeat this in your government, ie give contracts to officials?

No, that will not happen in my government, there's no way. We will sanction it if there is something like that. And we are going to put it before the authorities. If the issue is already being aired in the media, how is it possible that the Prosecutor - Jorge Winckler Ortiz - does not take up any line of investigation in the face of such facts? 

Kidnapping and extortion hurt population at large

According to the official numbers, between January and May of 2018 there have been 604 murders, 28 femicides and 64 kidnappings. What are the consequences of this problem that you have seen in the towns?

The crimes committed against the population at large have increased, which are extortion and kidnapping (...) That's why the first thing demanded of me in this new campaign was to attack insecurity.

Taking into account that this phenomenon directly affected society, because there were murders in the streets, in schools, in churches, and a particular case, in prisons, what is your technical diagnosis? 

The diagnosis obviously has to do with the figures. We have to analyze why kidnapping and extortion are particularly triggered in Veracruz. These crimes are not done by the gang that is dedicated to drug trafficking, it is another type of gang that is also organized, that studies the victim very well, that spends resources to commit his or her end and also does it by region. One of the strategies - in my government - is to regionalize the crimes in order to detect the modus operandi of these gangs and also analyze how they have penetrated the police commanders in those regions (...) Of course there has to be complicity, that's why these groups act with such nerve, doing their crimes even in the light of day, at any time, and with as much impunity as possible. 

Armed Forces will not be in the streets except in exceptional cases

Will the Army and the Navy continue to be in the streets?

No. When I talk about coordination, it is not that, I refer to issues of effectiveness in combating crime and sharing information. Only in exceptional cases can we request the assistance of the Armed Forces, I will not have exceptions. In case crime exceeds the state forces I am going to request it, and I have all the confidence, because I know that the supreme command, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president of the Republic, will never use it to repress. 

The next Secretary of Security must withstand the gunshots of criminals, it will not necessarily be the military.

 
The City Council of Xalapa - governed by MORENA - appointed an Obrador associate as head of the Municipal Police. Will they resort to a similar measure? In this government there was also an initiative that the Secretary of Security position would be occupied by a Navy command? What do you consider? 

I respect the decisions of the mayor, what he looked for was someone who had knowledge, there you can't come at in an improvised way. I think that was the main thing, and obviously someone you trust. Security is not easy. On the other question, it does not necessarily have to be with someone from the Armed Forces or some ex-military man; not to exclude it or say that this should be the profile, I think that what should prevail is the professionalism of the person who occupies the position, but above all that it doesn't get corrupted because it's the first place the criminals will look to intimidate with gunshots. In my case, it will be like that.

Prosecutor Jorge Winckler was made a fool of for investigating caciques linked to crime

As a candidate for governor, you resumed a journalistic investigation that revealed the Secretary of Public Security, Jaime Téllez Marié, as a Zetas informant: you also pointed to PAN militants from the north of the state for being linked to organized crime. Have you identified these type of cases?

We are going to urge the Prosecutor's Office to investigate the García Guzmán family -related to the former Duarte comptroller, Ricardo García Guzmán- society indicates that they have these ties.

I am going to urge members to assess the prosecutor's own act. Why have the signs of these public figures not been acted upon? I wouldn't want to think that there is an electoral agreement; that I help you with electoral services but do not investigate me. The prosecutor of surname Winckler is being made a fool before certain people (...) Why has it been so disregarded with cases like García Guzmán; and towards the south with the Tronco Family; with Vicente Benítez -former associate of Javier Duarte - with Gregorio Gómez -the PAN-PRD ex-candidate in Poza Rica? If Congress determines that the prosecutor has been complicit, negligent, or inept, he will have to be removed through political trial.

Declare humanitarian crisis and attract funds to identify remains of graves

You already had a reconciliation with groups of relatives of the disappeared in a conservatory organized in Xalapa. Among the demands of the victims, mentioned was a lagging behind in the identification of remains. La Silla Rota documented the case of the graves in La Gallera, where we showed that the Prosecutor's Office left the area and left human remains and clothing that families consider a means to identify their own. How will you act on the issue of missing persons and what will be the priority of your government? 

One of the pretexts of the current authorities is that there is no money for research studies, which are expensive, but I think, the current ruling class doesn't want to give up certain privileges in order to get money over there. That is why to rectify that, in an urgent manner, an additional budget be attended to that problem, declaring a humanitarian crisis in order to attract funds where the corpses that already exist can be identified. That is going to be the objective of raising a state of emergency that will have to be supported by the congress, in order to say "well, before it was spent on this, now it goes to the attention of the victims, including the identification of corpses." Yes, where to cut money, for example, we could remove the privilege of high officials traveling by plane and save at least 50 million pesos, this would be made available to the State Search Commission and the creation of a bifunctional fund, that captures money from other sides to be saved, like the one that is used in the FONDEN [Fideicomiso Fondo de Desastres Naturales]. You could take money from section 3000 of the public administration, which refers to general services, where there is another paragraph that refers to "other services", only there are 685 million that can be redirected to that fund.

Reporters want to know what happened to their murdered colleagues 

You have set your stance on murdered journalists and you have mentioned the creation of a Specialized Commission. It is not clear to us if it will be proposed through the Office of the Public Prosecutor, the creation of a Specialized Prosecutor's Office, or if it will be backed by the State Commission for the Protection of Journalists (CEAPP).

We would have to see how effective the performance of the CEAPP has been, and ask journalists if they are satisfied with the versions that exist concerning the murders and disappearances of journalists. If the consensus is that they are not, we will have to act and look for other mechanisms.

Many reporters want to know the truth of what happened to their colleagues. Usually a reporter would disappear and then he would appear dead and everyone would say 'he was on bad terms.'

There is the case of photojournalist Rubén Espinoza, in which it was said that he was at a party and who knows what he was doing with a prostitute and that even drugs could have been brought; always about the dignity of the reporter, implying that he was talking to the mob and collecting from them. It is necessary to clean the image of several of them and to fix it, and because of that incident it was not investigated more.

Feminicides are a record in Veracruz, municipal women's institutes must be reinforced 

For Cuitláhuac García the femicides "are already record in Veracruz" and in April 2018, the entity that will be governed by García starting December 1 will be positioned at the highest national level.

"The issue of alerts (gender) would be useless if there is not a willingness on the part of the government to act on it. The actions recommended by many feminists and civil organizations concerning attacks on women are not carried out. The Special Prosecutor's Office is not acting forcefully," said the interviewee.

As part of a diagnosis of this problem, García mentioned the lack of a budget for prevention programs, with financial support from the Veracruz Institute for Women (IVM). 

"We see that the IVM receives around 16 million pesos a year, but we have 212 municipalities, that equitably distribute that budget. Each municipality would have around 5 thousand 500 pesos monthly. What institute can work with that budget?," he criticized.  

"With that you do not pay the salary of a single person, much less a prevention program. The municipalities were abandoned, in that sense, (the state government) was not given a budget to strengthen their municipal institutes for women nor was it done through the IVM. We are going to give them a budget so that the women themselves defend in a preventative manner the actions against their gender."