TITLE: A porous border and the river of steel: Weapons trafficked from US bleed Mexico dry
https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-05-29/a-porous-border-and-the-river-of-steel-weapons-trafficked-from-us-bleed-mexico-dry.html
EXCERPT: A study by the University of San Diego and the Igarapé Institute estimated in 2013 that some 253,000 weapons were trafficked into Mexico each year. Or, in other words, some 693 weapons per day, or 28 per hour. In another exercise, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry calculated two million weapons were trafficked in the last decade. The real figures are impossible to establish.
A central source for approaching the issue is data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) based on traceability tests of weapons found at crime scenes in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Consistently, these studies show that approximately 70% of guns found at crime scenes in Mexico were manufactured in the United States before being illegally trafficked into the country. In the period 2017-2021, the majority of those guns were purchased from retailers in Texas (43%), Arizona (17%), and California (13%).
Gun trafficking from the United States to Mexico involves networks of all sizes. In some cases, it is the Mexican cartels themselves that manage to maintain their own steady source of weapons. In other cases, those responsible for the illegal trafficking are independent networks that serve as arms suppliers to several different cartels. A recent ATF publication showed that traffickers who directly or indirectly facilitated the movement of firearms into illegal markets tend to be white (53%), male (84%), and U.S. citizens (95%). Claims that the main perpetrators are foreigners are false.
In recent years, a new modus operandi has become very common: the shipment of gun parts by parcel to Mexico to be assembled there. In 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas charged an individual named Chandler Britain Bradford with trafficking AR-15 rifle parts and components from the United States to Mexico between 2018 and 2022. According to the indictment, Bradford shipped by parcel or carried directly 70 parts and components that constitute an AR-15 to Monterrey. His associates in Mexico did the assembly work. According to the prosecution’s indictment, in four years of operation, Bradford received $3.5 million as a result of the operations. In exchange, Bradford’s partners in Mexico were able to assemble at least 4,800 semi-automatic rifles in four years. Bradford’s is one of hundreds of investigations the ATF opens each year into illegal arms trafficking in the United States. A needle in a haystack.
Weapons in Mexico have not only served to kill. Their most profound impact is that they have functioned as vectors for the expansion of criminal networks in the region. Firearms have allowed criminal circuits limited in size and power to challenge state authority to previously unimaginable dimensions. They have been the enabling factor in the growth from small networks to large armies with the capacity to dominate cities. Without firearms, territorial expansion would not have been possible.
Access to firearms enabled the diversification of the criminal market in Mexico. For decades, dozens of criminal groups dedicated themselves to drug trafficking without engaging in other crimes. Since the relaxation of laws in the United States in 2004-2005, this has changed. Easy access to weapons allowed them to build up a sufficiently large dispensary that made it easy for them to enter other businesses. The logic was very simple: if we already have the weapons, why not take advantage of them and use them?
Under this premise, the cartels ventured into new niches: human trafficking, extortion, commercial robbery, and contract assassinations. Every crime imaginable. They acted as what they are: capitalists looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs. They besieged entire cities and challenged (or ended up challenging) the local police, who could do little in the face of the firepower of the weapons coming from the north.
Today, the Mexican state faces a very different criminal problem than it did 15 years ago. It is a different bug, a different animal. Firearms have empowered criminal organizations and challenged the state’s ability to deal with them.
TITLE: ‘It’s become a battleground’: Mexico’s local candidates face deadly violence
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/29/mexico-election-violence-celaya
EXCERPT: Breakfast with Juan Miguel Ramírez, candidate for mayor in Celaya, Mexico, is interrupted by the thud of army boots coming down the stairs.
Soldiers have been camped on the roof of the family home since Ramírez replaced his predecessor, Gisela Gaytán, who was shot dead on the first day of her electoral campaign in one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.
Gaytán is one of 30 candidates to have been murdered on the road to Mexico’s 2 June vote. Hundreds more have dropped out or asked for protection as organised crime groups vie for influence in government, corroding Mexican democracy in the process.
The violence in part reflects the scale of the elections, Mexico’s biggest ever. They will decide the successor of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as well as more than 20,000 posts at the federal, state and municipal levels.
All political parties have been affected by violence – but it is candidates and authorities at the municipal level that have been hit hardest. It is both the least protected layer of the state and where criminal groups seek deals with authorities to deepen their control over the local territory and its businesses.
Several factions are fighting over Celaya (population 500,000), one of the biggest industrial cities in the state of Guanajuato.
“It’s become a battleground,” said Falko Ernst, Mexico analyst for the non-profit Crisis Group. “It’s not just about drug routes, but oil siphoning, local extortion markets and retail markets for methamphetamine.”
Since 2020, roughly one in every thousand people in Celaya has been murdered each year. It is the most dangerous city to be a police officer in Mexico: in the past three years, at least 34 officers have been killed.
Hours before her death, Gaytán held a press conference in which she laid out her proposals to fight corruption and improve security in Celaya as candidate for Morena, the party of President López Obrador. Both Celaya and Guanajuato have been governed by the conservative Pan party for decades.
TITLE: Terrifying moment mayoral candidate José Cabrera is assassinated at his final campaign event as violent spree that has claimed the lives of 36 politicians continues
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13476201/Mexican-mayoral-candidate-alfredo-cabrera-assassinated-rally.html
EXCERPT: Frightening video footage captured the moment a mayoral candidate was assassinated and three people were wounded at his final campaign event in the Mexican Pacific coast state of Guerrero.
José Cabrera, who was running for mayor in the municipality of Coyuca de Benítez, was shot at least two times by a gunman on Wednesday afternoon.
The 37-year-old can be seen exchanging pleasantries with supporters as he walked toward the stage set on a basketball court when the suspect aimed the gun at the back of his head and opened fire.Read More
The shooting sent screaming supporters running for safety before at least 15 rounds were fired.
The gunman, whose name has not been released by authorities, was shot dead. At least one person was arrested.
Cabrera is the 36th politician murdered since September 2023, the start of the campaign season.
Just five hours before his assassination, Cabrera, who was running under a unity ticket supported the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), National Action Party (PAN) and Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), had taken to Facebook to thank his supporters ahead of Sunday's general elections.
'I have not the slightest doubt that Our people have already decided and are convinced of the direction that our Municipality will take these next three years,' he wrote.
'Grateful to God and that his will is what will endure in this election, he knows the hearts of all of us and knows the intention we have to serve our people.
'I invite you to participate and make your voice count in that ballot box where you can choose your ruler responsibly. See you soon and together we will celebrate our triumph.'
The PRI lamented Cabrera's murder while slamming Morena, the ruling party, of failing to provide protection for public office candidates.
'We demand that the authorities investigate this devious crime and find those responsible,' the PRI said in a statement.
'It is a shame that the Morena government has not made even the slightest effort to guarantee the safety of the candidates and that this campaign ends violently.'
TITLE: The Tragedy of Mexico’s Election
https://time.com/6983054/mexico-election-sheinbaum-morena/
EXCERPT: That it is a foregone conclusion that Claudia Sheinbaum will be Mexico’s next President is a tragedy for Mexican democracy. Sheinbaum is Mexico’s presidential frontrunner and the anointed successor of the country’s powerful President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She leads most polls with a large double-digit margin that has remained virtually static for the entire campaign.
The tragedy isn’t that she is likely to win—a large majority of Mexicans will happily and democratically cast their ballots on June 2 for what will be the country’s first woman President (and the first of Jewish descent). It is how easily this triumph has been handed to her, even after campaigning on a platform of continuity in a country ravaged by violence, lawlessness, and twin fiscal and environmental crises.
Sheinbaum’s allies rebut this criticism by pointing to the positive impact the current Morena government has had through its more progressive policies—salaries have gone up and the economy is growing. They add that the numbers speak for themselves: the President has a 66% approval rating. But that figure is misleading; López Obrador’s approval rating falls within the average of virtually every President from the past 30 years.
Most Mexicans don’t necessarily adore the current government. They simply have not been given a decent alternative to vote for. And the opposition is in disarray in ways that will have a profound impact on the country’s future.