Mexican president rules out new ‘war on drugs’

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday ruled out launching a new war against drug cartels as she presented a national security plan aimed at curbing rampant criminal violence.

Sheinbaum, the first woman to lead the Latin American nation, said her government would prioritize tackling the root causes of crime and better use of intelligence.

“The war on drugs will not return,” the left-wing president said at a news conference, referring to an offensive launched in 2006 involving the military and backed by the United States.

Since then, a spiral of criminal violence has left more than 450,000 people dead and tens of thousands missing.

Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City who was sworn in on October 1, vowed to stick to her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs instead of bullets” strategy of using social policy to tackle the causes of crime to tackle.

“We are not looking for extrajudicial killings, as happened before. What are we going to use? Prevention, attention to the causes, intelligence and presence” of authorities, she said.

While Lopez Obrador prioritized prevention over violence, he controversially placed the National Guard under the control of the armed forces.

Critics said the move marked another step toward the militarization of the country — a claim both Lopez Obrador and his ally Sheinbaum have denied.

“There are families today who do not have access to a reliable municipal police force or to a fully reinforced state police force. That’s where the National Guard will play an important role,” said Sheinbaum’s Secretary of Public Safety, Omar Garcia Harfuch.

Sheinbaum outlined her strategy amid shock over the killing, reporting on Sunday the beheading of Alejandro Arcos, mayor of the capital of Guerrero, one of Mexico’s most violent states.

Meanwhile, in the northwestern cartel stronghold of Sinaloa, bloodshed blamed on gang infighting has killed more than 150 people in a month.

– ‘Global criminal enterprises’ –

Mexican cartel-related violence is concentrated in or along drug trafficking routes, borders and ports of entry for cocaine from Colombia and fentanyl ingredients from China, in addition to avocado and lime producing regions.

The country’s two main drug gangs – the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, which are among the most powerful criminal organizations in the world – wage wars for the land and forcibly recruit members.

Mexico’s most violent state, Guanajuato, a central industrial center about the size of Belgium, has also seen a recent spike in bloodshed.

That is due to a “counter-offensive” by the Sinaloa Cartel and its allies against Jalisco New Generation, which dominates the region, security expert David Saucedo said.

According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the two cartels are “at the heart” of a synthetic drug crisis in the United States.

They are “global criminal enterprises” that source precursor chemicals from China, operate “clandestine laboratories” in Mexico and use their “extensive distribution networks to transport the drugs into the United States,” the report says.

Violence has also escalated in the state of Chiapas, located on Mexico’s southern border, which the think tank InSight Crime describes as “a major smuggling center for both drugs and migrants.”

There, the violence coincided with the Jalisco New Generation’s incursion into areas that were once Sinaloa Cartel strongholds, the report said.

In Guerrero, several gangs are fighting for control of routes used to bring drugs by sea.

In the north, violence linked to drug and migrant smuggling into the United States makes border cities like Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Reynosa among the most dangerous in the world.

Throughout their history, the cartels have been able to profit from the corruption of security officials.

Genaro Garcia Luna, a former minister of public security, was convicted in the United States of receiving huge sums of money that allowed the Sinaloa cartel to smuggle tons of cocaine. (AFP)