Cartel disputes in Mexico result in two massacres in less than a week

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In less than a week, Mexico has recorded two massacres in the northern states of Tamaulipas and Zacatecas due to increasingly violent disputes over territory between organized crime groups, coinciding with the change of officials following the mid-term elections on June 6.

Last Saturday, there were attacks in various neighborhoods of the city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, between groups belonging to the Gulf Cartel, which left 19 people dead, 15 civilians and four were alleged criminals.

While between Thursday and Friday in the state of Zacatecas, there was a confrontation between members of the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) that left at least 18 dead.

“Unfortunately, this coincides with the changeover of local authorities because a good part of the country (15 states) is in that process after the June 6 elections,” said security specialist Javier Oliva.

He recalled that the change occurs both in municipalities and local congresses and state authorities (governors), as is the case of Zacatecas, along with 14 other states that renewed the local executive.

But for Oliva, “these attacks are also evidence of the impunity with which these criminal organizations can operate and act.”

NO REACTION CAPACITY

In addition, he said that these types of actions “are part of the logic of criminal dynamics” and what they imply and show “is an action in which there is no capacity of the presence of the Mexican State.”

He emphasized that citizens do not care “if there are disputes between criminals and they shoot at each other, but that the local authority, to begin with, does not have the capacity to react forcefully,” with the law in hand and with the capacity of repression that exists in a democracy “to contain aggression against the civilian population as in the case of Reynosa.”

The researcher of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) pointed out that in the case of Zacatecas, there is a problem given by an advantage that the state has and that now seems a disadvantage: being the geographical center of the country together with the state of San Luis Potosi.

“Then the communication routes are a node of contact with the United States and become very attractive to try to control them in terms of routes to reach the insatiable market of drug consumers in the U.S.,” he said.

The Zacatecas SSP reported in a statement on Friday that the confrontation was between members of the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS), in the community of San Juan Capistrano, located between the municipalities of Valparaiso and Huejuquilla El Alto, on the border with the state of Durango.

According to the report, the shooting began on Thursday afternoon, and after almost 12 hours of fighting, the firing ceased in the early hours of Friday. Still, due to the distance and the complicated terrain, it was not until midday that the Mexican Army, the National Guard, the Zacatecas Prosecutor’s Office, state police, and personnel from the Forensic Services arrived.