Country In Turmoil Due To Insecurity And Violence

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat 

Violence already has deep roots in our country, this added to the lack of a clear and articulated strategy among the three levels of government, could cause next year to be even more violent than 2023.

In the run-up to the 2024 presidential succession, Mexico is on fire. The 2023 that is coming to an end was marked by unprecedented violence, which is already deeply rooted in society and hurts practically the entire national territory.

The outlook for next year is discouraging, given the lack of a clear and articulated strategy to combat violence and insecurity and the political class focused on the largest elections in the country's history, it is very difficult for the situation to improve.

The insecurity crisis that began in 2006 with the start of Felipe Calderón's "War on Drug Trafficking" has given the country no respite. Seventeen years and three presidents have passed and violence continues to rise.

Crimes, in addition to being more recurrent, are more atrocious every day and hit most of the country's states.

Last Sunday, December 14, an armed criminal cell opened fire at a posada being held in the town of Salvatierra, Guanajuato, killing 11 young people and wounding 14 more.

Without yet finding those responsible, the hypothesis of the Guanajuato Prosecutor's Office was that the massacre occurred because minutes before the organizers had kicked out from the party some people who later returned with armed men to shoot them.

A total of 195 bullets were fired from seven weapons of different calibers. Regional prosecutor Navigio Agustín Gallardo revealed that a criminal group operating on the border between Michoacán and Guanajuato was behind the massacre.

A photograph of those present minutes before the tragedy has been shared on social networks and has become a symbol of outrage in the state and throughout Mexico.

Guanajuato is the second most violent state in the country; so far this year more than 2,400 investigation files have been opened for intentional homicide. It is also a state that demonstrates that the insecurity crisis is not new.

In the last five years, the state has remained at the top of the list of states with the highest number of intentional homicides. For 2018, Guanajuato totaled 3,517 people murdered; in 2019, 4,19 homicides; in 2020 there were 5,370; 2021 with 4,333 crimes; and in 2022 there were 4,329 violent events.

Atrocities and possible solutions

According to the social organization Causa en Común, during this year in Mexico there was a massacre every 19 hours, registering a total of 427.

The states most affected by this wave of violence are Guanajuato, with 57 massacres, closely followed by Zacatecas with 43 and Guerrero with 41, according to the organization's report.

To stop the wave of violence in the country, the organization made a series of recommendations among which are some addressed to the citizens themselves.

"Citizens and communities must demand from local and federal governments the resolution of cases with truthful investigations. There must be sociological approaches to understand the social and local reality that go beyond mere police approaches.

"In addition to sociological and police approaches, psychological approaches must also be added. To this end, the structures and programs of the health sector must be strengthened, along with psychological care at the national level, because the accumulation of violence reflects the serious pathologies that may be being experienced at the social level."

Causa en Común also recommends legislators and authorities to provide a budget for the Executive Commission for Attention to Victims and the National Search Commission to guarantee adequate services and legal and economic attention for victims.

In addition to financing projects that help to document, make visible and explain the violence that takes place in the country in order to generate awareness and proposals.

Finally, they recommend generating alliances with civil society organizations, private initiative and governments to build security programs and projects with the objective of responding to the realities of each community and region of the country.

Gender violence, without preventive measures

Without well-defined public policies and lack of public resources to prevent it, violence against women advanced this year, which could end up as the worst on record.

This situation reveals the disinterest and inability of the authorities of the three levels of government to solve the problem.

So far this year more than 3,000 women have been murdered in the country, and feminicidal violence affects the youngest women.

Despite this situation, local prosecutors only count 24 percent of these crimes as femicides, although the figure could be more than 50 percent.

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