AMLO, What If You Just Fight Them?

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Zambada was criminally formed in the Guadalajara Cartel headed by capos Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca, all apprehended between 1985 and 1989, putting an end to that criminal structure, and giving way to the creation of the most notorious cartels and the drugs that divided the country for their illicit activity

Perhaps the cartel that has enjoyed the greatest impunity in Mexico is the Sinaloa Cartel. Founded in the mid-1980s, it has among its criminal heads Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, who at 74 has been a fugitive from justice for more than 30 years.

Zambada was criminally formed in the Guadalajara Cartel headed by capos Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca, all apprehended between 1985 and 1989, putting an end to that criminal structure, and giving way to the creation of the most notorious cartels and the drugs that divided the country for their illicit activity. Most of these mafias survive to date, by corrupting security forces, prosecutors, federal institutions and, particularly, due to the inability of the Mexican State to persecute them and keep them in prison for the multiple crimes committed.

Currently, the Government of the United States has four Mexican capos among the most wanted and offers rewards for information that leads to their capture. Among them, the most notorious, in this and that territory, are: Rafael Caro Quintero, for whom they offer 20 million dollars, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, 10 million dollars, and five million dollars for information that leads to the capture of the children of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, “Los Chapitos”, in particular, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán.

In Mexico, there is no one who persecutes them, nor anyone who offers a reward for their capture, much less authority that is following their steps with the intention not only of apprehending them, but of dismantling their criminal structure to fight drug trafficking in an orderly, scientific manner. , with intelligence and special operatives.

The President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is not persecuting them. Despite the increasingly violent and bloody signs given by the cartels of insecurity by taking over towns, cities and streets to massacre their competitors, the national president doesn’t move one iota, his public policy of "hugs, not bullets", to avoid capture operations. In fact, whenever he can, he reiterates in his morning conferences, that he was personally the one who ordered the release of Ovidio Guzmán, another "Chapito" son of Guzmán Loera, when in 2019 the Federal Police, in coordination with United States authorities, stopped the capo, without firing a single bullet, in Culiacán, Sinaloa.

The Attorney General of the Republic, Alejandro Gertz Manero, is more busy and focused on the persecution of his political opponents, such as Ricardo Anaya, Santiago Nieto, Julio Scherer, or the family that belonged to his brother, who don’t have time to structure a drug-fighting strategy, as is its responsibility.

This week, the confirmation of the passivity (to say the least) of the authority and the impunity of the cartels, was given by President López Obrador, when he requested that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel stop using the name of Jalisco, because it affects the Pearl of the West state. Of course, not before ranting against former President Felipe Calderón, López Obrador said, following the execution of 17 people in Michoacán:

“…All this that we are seeing, in San José de Gracia, from where these groups emerged, from the government that was imposed through fraud, that declared war (U.S.), that didn’t address the causes, from the insecurity of violence, from where it emerged this organization from Jalisco (Jalisco New Generation Cartel), well then, all of them… which, by the way, should remove their name because they’re affecting the state of Jalisco, because it’s urgent that what we are suffering, from that time.”

So, why better instead of giving consideration to the cartels to ask them to change their criminal name, not fight them to dismantle them? The President would be fulfilling his obligation and commitment to provide security and tranquility to those governed by him.

Request that one cartel, only one, modify its criminal insignia (it didn’t do so with the Sinaloa Cartel, nor with that of Juárez, nor with that of Colima, nor with that of the Gulf, or that of Guerrero, to name a few), it is as much as granting that they persist in their criminal activity, but with another name so as not to affect the social reputation of a federal entity.

And that, that is to provide greater impunity to the criminal organizations that so tears the lives of Mexicans based on blood, lead and drugs.

Zeta Tijuana