No war on cartels, Mexican president vows to have a plan to curb violence

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday rejected a new “war” against drug traffickers and unveiled her strategy to fight organized crime in a country where every day reports new murders, gang wars, massacres and other bloodshed.

“The war against the narco will not return,” Sheinbaum, who took office last week, said at her daily news conference.

Instead, she outlined a four-point strategy that emphasized gathering intelligence, deploying troops, improving coordination among federal states and providing opportunities to deter impoverished youth from joining organized crime – one of Mexico’s most important employers.

A key part of the plan is to build on the oft-criticized “hugs, not bullets” strategy of Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

During his six-year term in office, López Obrador emphasized direct conflict with cartels and instead promoted scholarships, job training, economic aid and other initiatives in an effort to provide alternative career paths for at-risk youth.

The government considers “reducing poverty as a priority, closing gaps in inequality and creating opportunities so that young people have access to a better quality of life,” said Omar García Harfuch, Sheinbaum’s Minister of Security.

Critics called Sheinbaum’s plan vague and unlikely to deter violence in a country where heavily armed gangs control large swathes of territory and have expanded from cross-border drug smuggling to rackets such as extortion, kidnapping, migrant smuggling and plunder of national resources.

“They are telling us about a security program, but how they are going to do it is not clear,” said Erubiel Tirado, a security expert at Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. “The strategy is limited. … It is a collection of projected power points.”

Most details of the new security strategy had already been leaked or outlined by Sheinbaum, who had reduced Mexico City’s crime rate during her previous term as mayor.

But reducing crime at national level poses a much greater challenge: organized crime is more deeply entrenched elsewhere in the country than in the capital.

As the president spoke, mourners sang “¡Justicia! ¡Justicia!” marched through the streets of Chilpancingo, the capital of the violence-wracked state of Guerrero, during the funeral procession for Alejandro Arcos, the mayor who was assassinated last weekend, less than a week after taking office. Arcos’ severed head was placed on the roof of his white pickup truck, parked on a public street. Authorities have not named any suspects.

Meanwhile, a month of intra-cartel violence has all but paralyzed Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state and base of the Sinaloa cartel, the country’s largest.

How to tackle the violence and improve security across the country is the most pressing issue that López Obrador left Sheinbaum.

López Obrador had already put behind him the “war” on the cartel crackdown – a now discredited militarized campaign launched nearly two decades ago that cost tens of thousands of lives but did little to weaken the power of organized crime. But he also vastly expanded the role of the Mexican Armed Forces, which now command the National Guard, which had previously been under civilian control.

The new president’s plan also relies heavily on the military, although experts say the troops are ill-equipped for a law enforcement role.

“The operation of public safety in this country lies with the army, the navy and the national guard – everything is militarized,” Tirado said. “That’s a problem. The strategy is limited.”

Last week, soldiers shot at suspected smuggling vehicles carrying migrants to the US in southern Mexico’s Chiapas state, killing six and wounding at least 10.

Critics say López Obrador has done little during his time in office to professionalize Mexico’s municipal and state police, many of which have been accused of widespread corruption. In her comments Tuesday, Sheinbaum did not address the issue of local police reform, which stunned many observers.

“If we don’t invest in the police, it will be very difficult to solve the security crisis,” Clemente Castañeda, an opposition senator, told Mexico’s Radio Formula.

Polls show that many Mexicans believe the violence is out of control. The government says the murder rate has fallen in recent years, but the rate is still much higher than in the United States.

Mexico had 26 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2017, before the number rose to 29 between 2018 and 2020, according to government statistics. Last year, the government reported, the murder rate was 24 per 100,000. That’s still more than four times the 2023 rate of 5.7 murders for every 100,000 people in the United States.

During López Obrador’s presidency, there were also more than 50,000 “disappeared” – mostly kidnapped victims who were presumed dead, often buried in clandestine graves.

Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.