Mexican journalist caught between weak president and emboldened cartel

While it’s exceptionally dangerous to be a journalist in Mexico, the threat has traditionally been directed toward local reporters. Nevertheless, this threat is serious. It came via a video released by armed gunmen on behalf of CJNG’s leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes. Cervantes, also known as El Mencho, is upset over what he says is Uresti’s overly sympathetic coverage of vigilante groups in Michoacan state. Facing a government security apparatus that is split between a skilled but overstretched group of professionals, vast cadres of corruption, and widespread incompetence, vigilante groups have stepped up to fight cartels such as the CJNG.

El Mencho’s message was clear. “Azucena Uresti, wherever you are, I will find you, and I will make you eat your words, even if they accuse me of femicide, because they do not know me, [El Mencho]. I am not an extortionist.”

El Mencho is, in fact, an extortionist.

He’s also a defining hypocrite who rose to prominence by pledging to confront extortionists and kidnappers, but then escalated both activities to new levels. In many ways, El Mencho has made the CJNG look like a Mexican version of the Islamic State. Whether it’s the kidnapping, torture, and killing of innocent Mexicans, the attacks on U.S. consulates, the attempted assassination of U.S. diplomats, or the brazen assassination attempts against Mexico City’s public security chief, nothing is off-limits for the CJNG. The group’s near-psychotic brutality involves cannibalism as a training tool. Such tactics serve to dehumanize recruits, better enabling their future atrocities while also ensuring loyalty.

Unfortunately, for courageous journalists, activists, police officers, judges, and prosecutors, the CJNG and its cartel brethren aren’t the only problems around. While they face unprecedented threats from these criminals, Mexicans also suffer from an incompetent government.

The rot goes to the top, here, resting with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. A cartel appeaser, he claims that his “hugs, not bullets” strategy will eventually bring peace to Mexico. The cartels’ body count would appear to defeat this optimistic notion.

But it’s worse than that.

Ultimately, Lopez Obrador is an enabler of the cartels, if not a direct ally. The best evidence for the president’s complicity in narcotrafficking came last year, when the Drug Enforcement Administration detained Mexico’s former defense minister Salvador “the Godfather” Zepeda on a visit to Los Angeles. A corrupt kingpin who had enabled trafficking in return for a slice of the pie, Zepeda was charged as such and belongs in prison. But rather than accept the U.S. prosecution as a means to justice, Lopez Obrador threatened to cancel all U.S.-Mexico anti-narcotic operations unless Zepeda was released to face justice on Mexican soil. Zepeda was indeed released to Mexican authorities. He remains a free man.

When he’s not kowtowing to the cartels, the president is engaged in frivolous grandstanding. The president’s newly announced lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers is just one example. Lopez Obrador’s disbanding of his protective security detail is another. He now travels with a mixture of aides and a disorganized mix of security advisers. Of course, for the Mexican president, the cartels aren’t much of a threat. They know that they have a friend in the National Palace.

Mexicans are thus caught between the chaos of the cartels and the cronyism of a government that doesn’t care. Considering that Mexican human rights and U.S. security interests are at stake, the Biden administration shouldn’t accept this sorry state of affairs. President Joe Biden should designate the CJNG as a terrorist organization. He should then authorize a covert action finding to allow the CIA to capture or kill El Mencho.

That won’t fix Mexico’s malaise, but it will offer a semblance of justice to El Mencho’s many victims.