Sheinbaum reinforces the narrative of success in her security policy amid crisis with the US
The president revealed some tension in last week’s meeting with the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin over crime: ‘I told him there are state institutions that are coordinated by brave men’
Mexico is trying to reposition itself after the blow from the United States, which filed criminal charges against the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha, and nine other local officials nearly a month ago. Caught out of step, Claudia Sheinbaum’s government is trying to seize the initiative, an intention made visible Wednesday at the National Palace with the appearance of the full Security Cabinet at the president’s daily news conference. At root, it is a message to the White House that the constant criticism overlooks the work that has been done by Mexican authorities — and that it is irritating.
The president only provided one figure, a 49% reduction in the average daily homicides recorded since she took office in October 2014, and then handed the floor to her collaborators. Later she revealed a detail of the meeting she and her team had last week with U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in Mexico City. “When he spoke about the organized crime situation in Mexico, I told him: ‘There is a Mexican state. And there are state institutions that are coordinated by brave men,’” she defended.
Sheinbaum has tried to reinforce the narrative of her security policy’s success at an awkward moment. The U.S. accusations against Rocha and the others for supporting a criminal group have poisoned a relationship that had already been strained weeks earlier by evidence that CIA agents were operating on Mexican soil, specifically in Chihuahua, a state governed by the opposition. The president’s and her party Morena’s annoyance with the issue — an attack on national sovereignty, in their view — ended up becoming the prelude to the charges against Rocha.
The president and her party, omnipotent in Congress, have spoken in two different registers in recent weeks: one domestic, and one binational. Morena has stepped up its attacks against Chihuahua’s governor, Maru Campos of the National Action Party (PAN), who is being held politically responsible for the CIA’s operations south of the Rio Grande under the official narrative. Campos faces an impeachment trial in the Chamber of Deputies and an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR), part of Morena’s response to the opposition campaign that labels Morena a narco-party.
On the binational front, the response is more cautious and seeks to persuade the U.S. that cooperation and respect for the guiding frameworks that sustain it are the only viable path. This Wednesday, Sheinbaum said: “We are interested in building peace, reducing crime, and that is done by addressing the causes [of violence] and zero impunity. Do we have to continue? Of course; do we have to keep delivering results? Of course; do we have to guarantee that people feel safe? Of course, and that they live safely. But the work done in the year and a half since we took office has produced a very important result.”
In the narrative battle on both sides of the border, Sheinbaum and her team spoke hours after U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson shared a summary of his first year in office. In a press release published Tuesday, the diplomat highlighted the “coordination in implementing security agreements at the highest level” between the two countries, the “transfer” of 92 targets and the “extradition” of 96 others to the United States, among them four of the FBI’s most-wanted targets, the capture of Audias Flores, El Jardinero, one of the leaders of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and the death of Nemesio Oseguera, El Mencho, the group’s absolute leader, during an operation.
For his part, the federal security secretary and the cabinet’s spokesman on the issue, Omar García Harfuch, detailed the figures: the reduction in homicides, the number of weapons seized — more than 30,000, 78% of them from the U.S. — the number arrested — more than 54,000 — the more than 400 tons of drugs seized and the over 2,000 drug labs dismantled. The senior official stuck to the usual script, focused on numbers. “Every day arrests are made of violence generators, large quantities of weapons and drugs are seized, labs are destroyed, financial resources are secured and criminal networks dismantled,” he said.
Both Harfuch and the defense secretary, Ricardo Trevilla, and the Navy secretary, Raymundo Pedro Morales, stressed the increased investigative and intelligence capacities of their respective departments. Notably, the first virtually built the Undersecretariat for Investigation and Intelligence from scratch within the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, and gave new life to the ailing National Intelligence Center (CNI). “The CNI has increased its force by 30%, that is, it has 1,000 more agents. To date, 4,600 alert cards have been issued, which translate into preventing homicides, attacks, high-impact crimes and common-law offenses,” he emphasized.
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