Narco Power: The Barbarism in Zacatecas

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

The fury that the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel have faced in recent weeks in Zacatecas has caused numerous deaths on both sides, but it has also left victims such as paramedics, professionals and minors outside their criminal incitement.

Elements of the Army in Zacatecas.

Given the high number of deaths in Zacatecas due to clashes between criminal organizations, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice of Zacatecas, Arturo Nahle, points out in an interview that the state has experienced attacks from organized crime during government transitions.

What in his opinion aggravates the current conflict are the failed federal and state security strategies, the weaknesses of the system of prosecution and administration of justice and the fact that the dispute is between the most powerful cartels in the country: those of Jalisco and Sinaloa.

During the last 17 years, Zacatecas has been under siege by different criminal organizations, but since the war waged against them in the administration of Felipe Calderón, the state has not experienced, as it does today, so many successive days of massacres, forced displacement and extreme terror.

The fury that the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel have faced in recent weeks has caused numerous deaths on both sides, but it has also left victims such as paramedics, professionals and minors unrelated to their criminal cause.

There is no area of ​​the state free of violence, although the homicides have occurred mainly in the capital, Guadalupe, Fresnillo, Jerez, Villanueva and Valparaíso. In the latter municipality, the cartels fought a battle at the end of June in which 18 people died, according to official figures, although there are versions that there were more than 40.

In the last 10 days, these municipalities accumulated more than 50 homicides. Just this Thursday the 15th the federal government reported 10.

The attack by these cartels exceeded all authorities and the police and military force deployed in state territory. Inhabitants of Valparaíso and Jerez had to abandon their homes and property to take shelter in the capitals municipality because, one citizen says, "it was taken by the gunmen."

The reports of the Local Security Coordination Group, headed by the PRI governor Alejandro Tello Cristerna, reflect the critical situation despite the fact that its purpose is to boast of "forceful actions that are deployed through the Comprehensive Public Security Strategy for Zacatecas." .

Last June it was recognized that the number of calls to report crimes on the 089 phone (enabled in February) increased by 1,500%. Just in that month the kidnapping of five people and nine cases of virtual kidnapping surfaced. And in Guadalupe, a municipality in the capital, a drug packaging and distribution center was located. During the operations, thousands of doses were seized, mainly methamphetamine and cocaine.

But in the face of the pandemonium that was unleashed after the elections on the 6th of the same month, the outgoing governor chose to recognize "the complex moments" that the entity is experiencing, and then publicly ask the federal government to send more elements of the National Guard , which would be added to the 2,000 that are already deployed in Zacatecas.

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