TITLE: Deterrence policies and cartel violence fuel a humanitarian crisis in southern Mexico
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2024/10/21/deterrence-policies-cartel-violence-fuel-humanitarian-crisis-southern-mexico
EXCERPTS: Mexico is now among the top five countries hosting the highest number of new asylum seekers in the world, according to the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR. In 2023 alone, it registered a record of nearly 141,000 requests. About 60% of the applications were made in Chiapas – the southern state bordering Guatemala that most migrants from Central and South America, as well as from other continents, cross to try to reach the United States.
In the past few years, Chiapas has been gripped by a turf war between the formerly dominant Sinaloa Cartel and the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) – one of Mexico’s strongest criminal organisations. Alongside many other criminal groups, they are trying to assert their control over both the strategic drug routes and the booming migration industry.
With Chiapas under the de facto rule of the two cartels, migrants stranded in southern Mexico report daily extortions, kidnappings, threats, and harassment, including by law enforcement and border patrol officers.
As clashes between gangs intensified, homicides in the state jumped by more than 50% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2023.
The escalation of violence means additional challenges for migrants who already lack food, places to stay, and sources of income.
A November 2023 needs assessment by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Mexico showed that nearly 32% of interviewees lived in shelters and about 25% on the streets. Nearly 29% said their families had only one meal a day. Access to vital supplies and services was limited, including: water and personal hygiene items; clothing, health services, and medication; and reliable information and legal support.
Addressing those needs has grown more and more difficult as humanitarians struggle to adjust to working in such an unsafe environment. In May, a man was killed right outside the IRC’s office in Tapachula – Chiapas’ second-largest city – causing fear and distress among staff.
“The team was very affected by it,” said Rafael Velásquez, the organisation’s country director in Mexico. “They are not prepared for this level of violence.”
Tapachula is part of a migration corridor that begins about 20 kilometres further south, along the Suchiate river that separates Mexico from Guatemala. It has long been the most common crossing point for migrants making their way northwards – many after crossing the notorious Dárien Gap jungle route from South America. Between January and July, more than 285,000 people entered irregularly through Chiapas, more than twice the number for the same period in 2023.
This year, the ramping up of deterrence policies aimed at reducing the pressure on the US southern border has made the situation far worse, aid workers and migrants told The New Humanitarian.
Since January, the Mexican authorities have intensified their efforts by bussing migrants rounded up in northern Mexico and dropping them off in southern cities.
An election-year executive order in June from President Joe Biden allowing the temporary closure of the US border when ‘illegal’ crossings are high has further strained the humanitarian situation on Mexico's southern border.
Corrupt security forces and the increased militarisation of the border make migrants especially vulnerable, according to local religious leaders and aid organisations. In early October, six people were killed and a dozen more wounded when Mexican soldiers opened fire on a truck carrying migrants north of Tapachula.
As the situation spirals further downward, the few and often-underfunded aid groups operating in southern Mexico are increasingly having to restrict their work. At the IRC’s office in Tapachula, a map detailing violent incidents in the region serves as a chilling reminder of where not to go.
In other corners of the country, international aid is even more restricted than in Chiapas. In the states of Michoacán, Sinaloa, and Guerrero, it is the local organisations that are being left to do the most dangerous work.
In addition to reducing where they will operate due to the spreading violence, International aid groups feel compelled to restrict their assistance in other ways too.
Aid groups are supposed to inform and warn migrants about the risks they face, but two humanitarian workers, who requested to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of the topic, said they try to avoid using words like organised crime, or cartels, or even slang terms for people smugglers like polleros or coyotes. If cartel or gang informants hear them using such terms, they risk repercussions that could compromise their ability to work in that area.
“We know that criminal groups have informants operating around the migrants. That makes our work with migrants harder, and we have to be careful to make sure [the criminal groups] don’t feel threatened,” explained Velásquez.
Not even migrant shelters are safe from the vigilant eyes of organised crime. In Mexico City, gangs have reportedly infiltrated shelters, and Velásquez said the same is now happening in Tapachula.
But tackling insecurity and seeking justice is no easy task in Mexico, where the perpetrators of the extortion and kidnapping are rarely sought, let alone apprehended.
“Legal frameworks are in place, but, in practice, states hardly show any commitment to accountability efforts,” said Jorge Peniche, a lawyer from the Guernica 37 Centre, an international organisation that works with victims of rights abuse in Mexico. “Impunity is so intertwined with economic, political, and social practices,” he added.
TITLE: Murdered priest in Mexico remembered as ‘tireless apostle of peace’
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/260013/murdered-priest-in-mexico-remembered-as-tireless-apostle-of-peace
EXCERPTS: Father Marcelo Pérez, a priest of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas in the Mexican state of Chiapas, died on Oct. 20, killed by two men who shot him after he had celebrated Mass. His diocese now remembers him as a “tireless apostle of peace.”
The Mexican Bishops’ Conference lamented in a statement the “brutal murder” of the priest, noting that this act “not only deprives the community of a dedicated pastor but also silences a prophetic voice that tirelessly fought for peace with truth and justice in the Chiapas region.”
The Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas also issued a statement in which it demanded that the three levels of government “completely halt the violence” affecting Chiapas, describing it as the result of “impunity, complicity, and corruption.”
The diocese reiterated its demand for the “immediate disarmament and dismantling of crime gangs” operating in the region. It also called for the murder of Pérez to be solved and for “justice be done until those truly responsible are found.”
Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi, who ordained Pérez as a priest, described him as a man “committed to justice and peace among Indigenous peoples.”
In a statement shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, he emphasized that the murdered priest “never got involved in partisan politics but always fought for the values of the kingdom of God” and added that the priest was “very focused on his vocation, very prayerful and spent a lot of time before the tabernacle.”
The cardinal noted that “his murder shows us, once again, the climate of violence that has been unleashed in Chiapas and in almost the entire country.” He affirmed that this situation is indicative “that the government and all of us, including the churches, are overwhelmed. We haven’t managed to stop the violence, but rather it is increasing.”
TITLE: The press under siege in the Sinaloa war: ‘Shooting at one media outlet is a warning to the others’
https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-10-23/the-press-under-siege-in-the-sinaloa-war-shooting-at-one-media-outlet-is-a-warning-to-the-others.html
EXCERPT: The press is going through difficult times in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The war unleashed between factions of the Sinaloa Cartel following the arrest in July of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in the U.S. has put journalism under siege in recent weeks. The shooting at the headquarters of the newspaper El Debate, one of the largest and most important in the state, the kidnapping of a worker from the same media outlet and the threats that have been increasing in recent times have placed the entire profession on alert. Several journalists and human rights defenders talked to EL PAÍS about the fear and uncertainty they feel as they go to work every day.
The key date was September 9. That Monday, a wave of violence without recent precedents broke out in Sinaloa. The alleged betrayal by one of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, against Zambada, whom he allegedly turned over to U.S. authorities, broke a balance that had reigned for years in Culiacán. Until then, the two factions had coexisted almost without trouble in the capital city of Sinaloa. But the breaking of that “unwritten code,” says a local reporter who does not want to provide his name for security reasons, led to the war that has shaken the state since then.
The reporters were caught in the middle of this struggle, several people explained to this newspaper. “The situation is complicated by the division within the Sinaloa Cartel,” says Jesús Bustamante, president of the June 7th Association of Journalists. “We have nothing to do with it, but we have the duty to report on what is happening.” The increase in clashes between factions of organized crime led to an increase in intimidation against the profession, threats, and blockades to prevent access to the areas where the acts of violence were taking place. “All of this became more visible with the attack on El Debate,” he adds.
On October 17, just after 10:30 p.m., the headquarters of El Debate in downtown Culiacán was attacked by gunfire from a person who got out of a car with a long gun. The vehicle had been circling the media outlet for a while, and when the attacker fired at the facade, two journalists who were at the door managed to run and lie down to avoid the bullets. The bullet-riddled entrance is the one that the staff uses to enter and leave, explains a newspaper worker who declines to give his name, and at that time there are usually a lot of people around. That day, some colleagues had left just minutes before the attack. No one was hurt, but “the fear that this leaves behind does not go away.”
Less than two days later, the media outlet was attacked again. A deliveryman on a motorcycle who was carrying the printed editions of the newspaper was chased, attacked and kidnapped by armed criminals in the early hours of last Saturday. Since then, his colleagues and family have had no news of him. “I hope that the people who took him will take pity on him and release him,” says his colleague. The photographs distributed after the attack on the deliveryman showed the newspapers scattered next to his motorcycle, with no sign of the worker. For the other media outlets, these two attacks are a message from the criminal world to the entire profession. “By attacking a highly recognized media outlet with bullets, they put everyone on alert,” says Bustamante. “It is a warning to the others.”
When the wave of violence broke out in early September, the press began to notice signs that coverage was going to be difficult, Bustamante explains. In the previous months, if they asked permission from criminal groups to enter a red zone, they could do so. But recently, when they tried to access areas where clashes were taking place, cartel members blocked their way and warned them not to publish anything about what was happening in certain municipalities, he explains. This led journalists to stop entering rural areas, abandoning such coverage so as not to expose themselves. “We are limiting ourselves to reporting on events in the city because there is no safe way to reach those municipalities,” he says.
At least three reporters who declined to give their names said they now take extra precautions when going about their work. They don’t go out at night, they don’t go to cover a story alone, and sometimes they don’t even identify themselves as journalists. “The press is living in a context of fear,” says the El Debate worker. “We are trying to understand what the limits are so that the content you write doesn’t get you into trouble.”
SEE ALSO:
In Mexico’s bloodied Sinaloa state, police and prosecutors conspired to cover up opponent’s killing
https://apnews.com/article/mexico-sinaloa-cartel-fighting-governor-scandal-223247f9cc2f2a1de9991ce6a959298f
19 suspected members of powerful Sinaloa cartel killed in shootout with troops in Mexico
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sinaloa-cartel-members-killed-mexico-troops/
Mexico National Guard finds arsenal after border drug cartel shootout in Valley of Juárez
https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/juarez/2024/10/23/mexico-drug-cartel-shootout-juarez-tornillo-guadalupe-border-arsenal/75790631007/