By Lizbeth Diaz
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Amid a recent wave of violence, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has despatched her safety chief and 1000’s of troops to stem a bloody escalation of drug cartel crime in Sinaloa state, signaling a shift in safety technique within the Latin American nation.
On the marketing campaign path, Sheinbaum had promised to largely proceed the safety coverage of her mentor and predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which prioritized addressing the basis social causes of crime slightly than attacking the cartels – an method nicknamed “hugs not bullets” after a catchphrase of the previous president.
However preliminary indicators from her first months in workplace recommend a extra aggressive method with essentially the most substantial deployment in a minimum of six years of navy and naval troops, in addition to particular forces and heavy weaponry to Sinaloa since an intra-cartel struggle broke out in September.
Excessive-profile arrests and huge drug seizures have adopted, together with a report bust of over a ton of fentanyl.
That extra front-footed technique may align nicely with President-elect Donald Trump, who has referred to as on Mexico to do extra to cease the circulate of medicine, and migrants, to the U.S.
Nevertheless it additionally dangers additional inflaming violence and homicides, as a extra confrontational place has executed up to now in a rustic the place cartels are closely armed with military-grade weapons.
Sheinbaum’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“There is a change without a doubt … we are seeing signs that the strategy of hugs and not bullets is on the way out,” mentioned Vicente Sanchez, a safety professional and member of Mexico’s Nationwide System of Investigators, a authorities company that works to enhance the standard of Mexican analysis.
Safety consultants mentioned they consider the brand new technique is partly a response to Trump’s menace to impose 25 p.c tariffs on merchandise from Mexico if the nation doesn’t curb drug trafficking and the unlawful crossing of migrants into the US.
Some have additionally taken it as an oblique admission that Lopez Obrador’s much less confrontational technique didn’t work, with many consultants saying it helped organized crime teams entrench energy in huge swaths of the nation.
The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, publicly criticized the method, saying it had “failed” and “Mexico is not safe.”
MILITARY TO THE STREETS
Some safety consultants have drawn comparisons between the operations in Sinaloa and the navy struggle waged on the cartels by then-President Felipe Calderon in 2006. That triggered a spiral of violence to which many analysts hint the continued excessive murder charges Mexico.
The United Nations has repeatedly criticized the usage of the armed forces within the battle in opposition to crime in Mexico, arguing that it encourages human rights violations. The Mexican authorities denies that safety within the nation has been militarized or that human rights abuses are widespread.
Key to Sheinbaum’s crime-fighting technique is her new safety chief Omar Garcia Harfuch, an skilled policeman who labored for the president whereas she was mayor of Mexico Metropolis.
Sheinbaum despatched Garcia Harfuch to Sinaloa to supervise operations.
“We know how difficult it is to pacify the country,” he mentioned final week after an investigator from his ministry was killed in Sinaloa.
The confrontation between rival teams in Sinaloa, which intensified on Sept. 9, has thus far killed some 650 individuals, with extra reported lacking. In an try and include the battle, the native safety chief was changed by a navy officer over the weekend.
In the identical week, a minimum of three troopers have been killed by land mines laid by organized crime in two separate places within the western state of Michoacan.
For some consultants there’s a hazard if Sheinbaum seeks to copy her technique in Sinaloa throughout the nation.
“Each one (criminal group) has its own personality, its own mark, and we have to find the part that hurts them,” mentioned Tomas Guevara, an professional on safety points in Sinaloa.
