• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

Mexico Must Solve Corruption Before it Can Attack Violence

Hector Dominguez Ruvalcaba by Hector Dominguez Ruvalcaba
05/16/19
in Opinion
Forensic personnel load the corpse of a man into a van, after he was executed at a shopping mall in Acapulco, Mexico, on April 24, 2018

Forensic personnel load the corpse of a man into a van, after he was executed at a shopping mall in Vista Alegre neighborhood in the touristic city of Acapulco, Guerrero state, Mexico. Photo: Francisco Robles, AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

On April 12, during Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s daily morning press conference, journalist Jorge Ramos contradicted the president’s optimistic claim that violence had diminished since he took office. The anchorman of the Spanish-speaking channel Univision warned that if the pace of homicides would not slow down in the next few months, Obrador’s first year in power would result in a record year.

This public debate with the president unleashed national controversy regarding the new government’s effectiveness in dealing with the violence that has muddied the nation’s life for years. To get out of trouble, the president promised policies that would decrease violence in six months.

Lopez Obrador’s supporters argue that one cannot expect a structural problem that has developed over several decades to be solved in a few months. According to this view, the solution requires profound changes within the country’s economic, cultural, and judicial structures, and that takes time.

Corruption and Mexico’s Political Culture

Corruption is the primary structural issue that has made violence a prevalent factor in Mexico. The collusion of authorities with criminals has been extensively recorded since the 19th century but has reached outrageous levels in present times. This collusion is crucial to understanding why the levels of impunity have been consistently over 95 percent since the 1990s. Corruption has become a defining aspect of Mexico’s political culture, leading to far-reaching consequences.

For example, in the midst of a war between the Zeta and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels, that has lasted ten years, 5,000 people have disappeared in the eastern state of Veracruz alone. The majority of the kidnappings of Zeta members were conducted by the state police under the command of the Jalisco cartel. The new governor, aligned to Lopez Obrador’s agenda, has to deal with an unreliable police department. Opponents do not believe that this system of corruption can easily be disarticulated. Human rights activists express worry as the levels of impunity and corruption have not yet changed.

In response, the president’s supporters point to the drastic reduction of fuel robbery that had drained pipes for decades (from 80,000 stolen barrels per day in January to 4,000 today) as proof of the new government taking the task of fighting corruption seriously.

Why, then, has violence increased in the first three months of Lopez Obrador’s presidency? What changes in public policies, violence prevention, and the rule of law has this new government promoted and implemented and how can their effectiveness be assessed?

Violence and Organized Crime

These questions cannot be answered in a few lines; however, some clues can lead to an analysis of the present political juncture. For a start, it is not true that violence increased because Lopez Obrador became president. Except for the almost disarticulated system of fuel robbery (primarily because it relates to specific actors like union leaders and corrupt politicians), violence related to organized crime continues an upward tendency that began before Obrador took office.

Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), standing for MORENA party, cheers at his supporters
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Photo: Herika Martinez, AFP

Should this tendency continue, homicides in 2019 would surpass 2018 (23.1 homicides per 100,000 people), just as 2018 was worse than 2017 (20.27 homicides per 100,000 people). These homicides are the result of the wars between the cartels, whose power has increased due to greater territorial control and diversification in businesses. Besides drug trafficking, cartels now extort the population, kidnap, and are involved in slavery.

Large areas of Mexico are under the control of different criminal organizations, which have been engaged in several wars for over a decade. As they increase territorial control, monetary accumulation and hence the number of weapons and their capacity for corruption and blackmailing of authorities grows.

Lopez Obrador’s Inheritance

Lopez Obrador inherited a country undergoing a civil war disguised as multiple confrontations between criminal groups. Since the 1990s, criminal organizations have been incorporating significant areas of the state into their structures. Several police corporations, judges, majors, and even governors protect criminal activities instead of fighting them, which makes any effort to eradicate corruption a complex conundrum.

Violence has not been eliminated because of this pervasive corruption. But even so, the government has not yet offered a realistic solution to the problem.

Mexico’s Fourth Transformation

The fight against corruption was the main flag Lopez Obrador hoisted during his political campaign to become president. He promised that by reducing corruption, violence would be eradicated.

This reduction would require such a profound transformation of political structures that it is compared to the War of Independence (1810-1821), the Liberal Reform (1850-1860s), and the Mexican Revolution (1910). In this sense, Lopez Obrador’s time in office would result in a “fourth transformation of public life.” The outcome of the fight against corruption and violence will be the key criteria to gauge his regime’s effectiveness.

AMLO promises a “fourth transformation” of Mexico https://t.co/MtSd51DND4

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) September 24, 2018

Still, the main question to address is the success of Lopez Obrador’s policies against violence. His stellar strategy for fighting insecurity is the creation of the National Guard, which would concentrate the functions of the Federal Police and the Migration Police with strong military participation. This concentration of power has not been well received by several fronts, from academia to NGOs and international organizations like the United Nations. The reason: the participation of military personnel will keep the National Guard acting in ways different from what human rights advocates would like to see.

This reluctance to support military participation stems from the justified fear of the army’s abuse of the population, as grave human rights violations by militaries have occurred since 2007, during the so-called “war on drugs” supported by the United States.

Security and Social Peace

Since former President Felipe Calderon began his military strategy against cartels in his first months in office in 2007, thousands of disappearances and other abuses like torture, crime fabrication, and murders against civilians have been reported with very few cases of military corruption and extrajudicial violence brought to justice.

To recover confidence in the military, Mexicans need to see change. In response to the points raised by civil organizations and the academia, the government is training military personnel and those recently recruited for the National Guard in human rights issues. The nation has, at least for the moment, given this move the benefit of the doubt.

Two more strategies are part of Lopez Obrador’s plan for security and social peace: the support of youth in education and employment, and social investment in areas where, like in some rural regions, people have been forced to work for the cartels.

These long-term plans remain suspended between doubt and suspicion of it being simply an electoral agenda. It’s too early to see whether those changes in public policies will have any positive effects in arresting the progress of a war that has lasted more than a decade, and yet, too few still dare to call it a war.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
ShareTweet
Hector Dominguez Ruvalcaba

Hector Dominguez Ruvalcaba

Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at the University of Texas at Austin

Related Posts

No corruption campain billboard, Lake Kivu, Gisenye, Rwanda.
Opinion

In Africa, Corruption Remains a Barrier to Investment

by Herman Cohen
August 8, 2024
Mexico's president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo
World

Mexicans Celebrate Election of First Woman President

by Staff Writer with AFP
June 4, 2024
Security forces pass by a corpse as they inspect the area where at least 11 police officers were killed in an ambush by criminal groups in Coyuca de Benitez, state of Guerrero, Mexico
World

Armed Attacks in Mexico Leave 24 Dead, Including at Least 12 Police

by Staff Writer
October 24, 2023
Mexico disappeared students
World

Mexico President Urges Justice in Disappearance of 43 Students

by Staff Writer
August 19, 2022
Mexico murdered journalists
Media Freedom

Journalist Murdered in Mexico, 12th This Year

by Staff Writer
June 29, 2022
Mexico missing people
World

Over 100,000 People Reported Missing in Mexico, Data Reveals

by Staff Writer
May 17, 2022
Next Post
people offering EatWell meal kits

Affordable Meal Kits: Tool to Eliminate US Food Deserts?

US National Security Advisor John Bolton

The Existential Threat of Existential Threat Rhetoric

Recommended

An Iranian protester

Iran’s Nuclear Program: From Its Origins to Today’s Dispute

June 23, 2025
Protesters and police clash during the “No Kings” protest in Los Angeles, California on June 14, 2025.

US Appeals Court Allows Trump Control of National Guard in LA

June 20, 2025
Donald Trump

Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination

June 18, 2025
Iranian missiles and Israeli interceptors light up the sky over Beirut, Lebanon, on June 14, 2025. Iran launched multiple missiles toward Israeli targets, triggering interception attempts above several regional capitals, including Beirut.

Israel-Iran Conflict: Latest Developments

June 18, 2025
Tens of thousands of protestors shut down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, April 5, 2025, protesting the Trump administration's abuse of the separation of federal powers as well as the deep cuts to governmental services overseen by presidential advisor Elon Musk.

Civil Society Is Holding the Line. Will Washington Notice?

June 17, 2025
An Iranian walking in front of a wall painting of the Iranian flag in Tehran

How Much Damage Has Israel Inflicted on Iran’s Nuclear Program?

June 16, 2025

Opinion

Donald Trump

Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination

June 18, 2025
Tens of thousands of protestors shut down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, April 5, 2025, protesting the Trump administration's abuse of the separation of federal powers as well as the deep cuts to governmental services overseen by presidential advisor Elon Musk.

Civil Society Is Holding the Line. Will Washington Notice?

June 17, 2025
A Black Lives Matter mural in New York City.

Fuhgeddaboudit! America’s Erasure of History

April 2, 2025
Bust of Deputy Rubens Paiva in the Chamber of Deputies

Democratic Brazilians Are Still Here

March 18, 2025
A woman from Guatemala

Dispatch From Central America

January 28, 2025
US President Donald Trump

Dear Trump Supporters: Is This the America You Wanted?

January 28, 2025
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post