“Abrazos, no balazos” (“hugs not slugs”) and the culiacanazo (“Culiacángate”)

Monument to Francisco Figueroa Mata in the square of Huitzuco

In 1975 I was waiting for a bus in the main square of Huitzuco de los Figueroa, Guerrero. I had just visited Jesús Figueroa Alcocer, a revolutionary veteran, and a member of the family whose name the town bears. As I waited, carrying a gift of Jesús’ memoirs and two bottles of the wine he made, I overheard one lady say to another: “Did you hear that they killed young X?” The other lady replied, “Yes, he always did talk too much.” A certain casual violence, provoked by insults, family feuds, drunkenness, affairs of the heart etc. was part of the culture of Guerrero at the time. Yet in the 1970s Mexico did not have the reputation for violence that organized crime centred on drugs has brought to Mexico today.

Violence in 2019 Mexico that results in deaths can broadly be divided into three kinds: crime of the “everyday” sort (violent street robberies, small-scale drug dealing); more organized general criminality, such as kidnappings, local drug gangs, extorsion rackets (not infrequently run from prisons); the organized international crime of the cartels, which began with drugs, but now includes extorsion, people trafficking and many other forms of “business”. No country can be complacent about violence. The UK has a comparatively low murder rate (1.1 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018), but we are painfully aware that our cities suffer from serious knife crime that affects young people disproportionately. In the USA murders occur at four times the UK rate: 4.4 per 100,000. Mexico, alas, scores much higher: 22.3 in 2018 and in the first half of 2019 at a rate equivalent to 27.3.

Tijuana accounts for 7.5% of all murders in Mexico

A curious fact is that in just five cities the murder rate is at least three times the national figure: Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez on the US border; Ciudad Victoria in the northeast; Irapuato, an ugly industrial town in central Mexico; Acapulco, once a glamorous resort for the international jet set, on the Pacific coast. In these cities the rate is at least 80 per 100,000. To add some context here, consider the homicide rate in 2018 in some US cities that I have visited unscathed was: St Louis, MO, 60 per 100,000; Baltimore, MD, 52; Newark, NJ, 35.5. The deadliest was East St Louis, MO (I have been there too), 100 (27 murders in a small city of 27,000 people). In 2018 26 US cities, large and small, experienced murder rates higher than Mexico’s national statistics.

 

Police investigating a murder in East St Louis

Violence was already severe when Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, president from 2006-2012, announced a new strategy to counter organized crime. He would deploy the armed forces to hunt down the leaders of the drug cartels, disrupt their activities and bring the country back under control. Successive presidents followed Calderón’s lead. Unfortunately, when an important leader was captured or killed, the result was that violence increased, either because gang factions fought to take over the organization, or because another cartel seized an opportunity to eliminate a rival and seize its territory, or both. A change of government, which happens every six years, has also tended to increase crime

The new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced a new strategy, summarized as abrazos no balazos (“hugs not bullets”). The plan is to abandon or scale back the militarized strategy of previous presidents, denounced by AMLO as the plan of “corrupt conservatives” (in AMLO’s rhetoric “predecessor”, “conservative” and “corrupt” are synonymous). Instead, AMLO emphasizes addressing the social causes of violence (principally poverty, lack of opportunity and governmental corruption). He emphasizes that “we are all Mexicans”, including criminals and that the army should not be deployed against its own people. It is certainly true that the previous militarized strategies have not worked. The question, then, is whether AMLO’s plan is likely to produce better results. The statistics for 2019 are discouraging. However, it was never likely that such a stubborn problem could be eliminated in a single six-year term. The question is whether AMLO’s approach shows early signs of success.

The Caballo Blanco after the attack

In August a group of gunmen, presumed to be members of a drug gang, attacked the Caballo Blanco Bar in Coatzacoalcos, in the state of Veracruz. A 15-year old boy who was a member of the gang threw a molotov cocktail. Some 29 people died from gunshots and burns. The 15-year old himself was badly burned. AMLO denounced the attack as the result of corrupt links between the state prosecutors and organized crime. He said “We must look after our young people, not turn our backs on them. The prisons are full of young people, most of those who lose their lives are young people … So, we must deal with the causes of insecurity and violence.” This is true, but what does AMLO plan to do with the young person, and his accomplices, who had just participated in the murder of 29 people, beyond warm rhetoric and a verbal hug?

El Chapo in custody in New York

At first glance, AMLO’s approach makes more sense than simply sending in the army, often after the event. However, the culiacanazo in October raises serious questions about abrazos no balazos. Before describing the event, a little context is needed. One of the first and most successful organized crime and drug cartels is the Sinaloa Cartel, based in the northern state of Sinaloa, and led by Joaquín, el Chapo (“shorty) Guzmán. El Chapo was twice arrested and jailed in Mexico, but managed to escape. When he was captured for a third time he was extradited, tried in New York, convicted of drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder in the USA (he was not tried for his many crimes in Mexico), and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. AMLO expressed sorrow for Guzmán’s victims, and then commented on the sentence: “I wish no harm to anybody. I don’t like to kick anybody when he’s down. It’s a Biblical principle ... I don’t want anybody to be in jail, I am an idealist. It’s not a pleasant life to be unable to see your family, to live as a fugitive is no kind of life. And when these things result in sentences like this, a life sentence, in a hostile, hard, inhuman jail, well it moves one to pity.” This statement rather blithely ignores a simple fact: El Chapo lived as a fugitive for one simple reason. He was responsible for murders and many other crimes in Mexico and the USA, and is probably less easily moved to pity than his nation’s president.

Ovidio Guzmán in temporary custody

Now, two of El Chapo’s sons have assumed control of the Sinaloa Cartel in their father’s absence. Last month an army patrol raided a house in Culiacán, Sinaloa. One of the occupants was Ovidio Guzmán, one of El Chapo's sons. A video released by the government shows soldiers, with scrupulous courtesy, asking those in the house to please (por favor, “please”, is heard repeatedly) come outside. The soldiers were clearly nervous, and anxious to avoid a shoot-out. When Ovidio, a slim young man, wearing a baseball cap, a smart white shirt and a necklace, emerged from the house he was the very picture of calm. He surely knew that his own armed forces, superior in numbers and armament to the Mexican military, were patrolling the streets arresting, or shooting at, the police and soldiers, and setting vehicles alight to block roads. This is a sufficiently common response that Mexicans have a term for it: a narcobloqueo (narco blockade). In Mexico City government officials, alarmed at the risk to lives of innocent civilians, ordered their soldiers to retire and to leave Ovidio well alone. One of the soldiers handed Ovidio a phone and politely asked him to instruct his men to cease fire so that everybody could go home safely. [See the video and AMLO’s comments at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/mexico-el-chapo-son-ovidio-guzman-lopez-operation]

El culiacanazo

Now, even I know that, if the authorities arrest even a low-level leader, a narcobloqueo will ensue. If you happen to seize a particularly big fish, you can expect the response to be correspondingly large-scale. The desire to avoid the loss of innocent lives is admirable. But the real question is why the army and its masters in Mexico City allowed the raid to proceed, but made no provision to deal with the bloqueo.

When we returned to Mexico City in October, we asked our driver what he made of the culiacanazo. He thinks of the narcos as Robin Hood characters. They make money from crime, but in states such as Sinaloa they build schools and hospitals that the government does not. I have no idea whether this is true, but I pointed out that El Chapo and his sons have murdered a lot of people. We also discussed gun control in Mexico. Our driver explained that to have permission to buy a gun a citizen must apply for a permit from the Ministry of Defence stating why (s)he needs a gun. The Ministry checks the background of the applicant. If issued, the permit will entitle the applicant to buy a handgun of modest capacity. Citizens are not allowed to buy military grade weapons.

How then did the participants in the Culiacán narcobloqueo manage to outgun the military? They did not need to circumvent Mexico’s gun control laws since just to the north lies a country happy to supply them with any firearms they wish to pay for: the United States of America, home of the National Rifle Association and its friend in the White House. Much of the money used to buy the arms is supplied by the US citizens to whom the cartels sell drugs. So, while Mr Trump has been noisily demanding a wall to keep the Mexicans and others out, he has not lifted a finger to protect Mexico in return. America First indeed.