The violence in Mexico demands urgent solutions. That is the message that Ken Salazar has given, the United States Ambassador to Mexico, in the face of attacks by organized crime groups against the population and the insecurity crisis that plagues a large part of Mexican territory.
“It is time for results in security,” the diplomat said at a press conference this Thursday. “People have the right to live without fear”, he added. After meeting with businessmen, the representative of the Government of Joe Biden warned that the attacks by criminal organizations “cool off investments” from the private sector and has made more resources and more intense collaboration available to the Mexican authorities so that the commitments bilateral forces have a greater impact on combat on the ground.
“The impact on investment is real,” Salazar pointed out, in one of his most explicit public interventions on Washington’s concern about the situation of violence in Mexico. The press conference takes place just a few hours after the US Embassy updated the travel restrictions for its citizens in the Latin American country and included Zacatecas, one of the hot spots of insecurity, in the maximum risk category. There are already six Mexican states to which the White House directly recommends not to travel.
“We have interest and resources to support the Governments of the States and the Republic,” Salazar declared. The ambassador has said that the solutions to insecurity go through collaboration between the different levels of government, businessmen, civil society, and the support that the United States can provide.
The diplomat has not spoken of figures or concrete actions, but he has said that there is a willingness to offer technological assistance, intelligence work, and training of security forces.
The Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obradorit, Mexico’s President, has limited operations on the ground with US participation and has championed a sovereignist discourse, in which it states that the country “is not anyone’s colony.” At the end of last year and despite intermittent friction, both governments signed the “Bicentennial Understanding”, a program for the common fight against crime. Now, Salazar has pointed out that between the lines, words have to become facts. “Results are required,” he insisted.
“What we see in Mexico requires everyone’s effort,” Salazar urged. Last week, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s two main cartels, blocked roads and set fire to stores and vehicles in the states of Guanajuato and Jalisco, in retaliation for an attempt to capture one of its regional commanders. Several similar incidents followed in the border cities of Ciudad Juárez, in which 11 people died in one of the most violent days in recent years, and Tijuana, where the attacks imposed a curfew on the population. Washington had been discreet until now, although it did issue security alerts through its diplomatic representations.
Salazar has avoided commenting on the president’s security strategy, known as “Hugs, not bullets,” which has previously been criticized by members of the US Congress as well as the opposition. The ambassador did speak out about the murders of religious, specifically against the murder of two Jesuit priests a month ago in the north of the country, and about the violence against journalists. So far this year, 14 members of the media have been assassinated in Mexico, the highest annual figure of López Obrador’s term. The diplomat has also said that he is closely following the political debate on the decision to permanently militarize the National Guard, one of the main bets of the Mexican Executive.
“We are always here with respect for the Mexican government,” he said to avoid new tensions with the country’s authorities. “We have a very good relationship,” he added. What has become clear is that the wave of violence has not gone unnoticed on the other side of the border and the security issue has risen on the list of priorities of the United States with respect to Mexico, relegating trade disputes and migratory tensions to the background. The rest, Salazar has said, “can be resolved and will be resolved.”
The violence in Mexico demands urgent solutions. That is the message that Ken Salazar has given, the United States Ambassador to Mexico, in the . . .
