Following the death of drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho", a wave of violence hits Mexico. Caught in the crossfire: the civilian population.Helena Raspe, expert on organised crime and development cooperation at Misereor, comments:
"The situation has caused panic and deep insecurity. Our Mexican partner organisation "Educación y desarrollo para unificarnos en caminos alternativos" (EDUCA) reports a dramatic situation on the ground in the particularly affected state of Jalisco. Following the outbreak of violence, public life in Ciudad Guzmán came to an almost complete standstill. Shops, schools, markets and even pharmacies were closed, public transport and basic services were cancelled. Vehicles were looted and burnt, roads were blocked and shots were fired. Our partner "Instituto Mexicano para el Desarrollo Comunitario (IMDEC) in Guadalajara fears that the government will not be able to defuse the situation. According to the institute, the arrest of the big bosses is usually followed by bloody power struggles to the detriment of the population.
The Sheinbaum government's confrontational strategy, which appears to be largely under pressure from the USA, is not contributing to a reduction in gang violence and drug-related crime: The violence does not end with the killing of a drug lord - on the contrary, a policy of "heavy-handedness" and retaliation is fuelling the spiral of violence again and again and endangering the civilian population. Instead of carrying out media-effective operations against individual bosses or cartels, Mexico should urgently tackle the structural causes of organised crime: corruption, impunity, in particular the lack of prosecution of economic and financial crime, the historical interdependence between the state, the military and organised crime and, last but not least, widespread poverty and a lack of prospects for a young population.
Victor Hugo Lopez from the Misereor partner organisation "Red Nacional de Organismos Civiles de Derechos Humanos" reports that instead of militarising the country, Mexico now needs democratic responses to criminal business from which the people suffer directly: Forced recruitment for gangs and cartels, human trafficking, illegal logging, extortion and demands for protection money, as well as over 130,000 forcibly disappeared people according to official figures.
Germany can also make a greater contribution in the fight against transnational organised crime and, in cooperation with Latin American governments, work towards promoting greater social security and a resilient civil society through development policy strategies in order to break the spiral of violence."
