How a Small Cog in Mexico's Criminal Economy Grew Into a Hotbed of Terror Jesselyn Cook - The Huffington Post
go to original March 4, 2017

Former Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte Ochoa is now a fugitive criminal charged with numerous counts of embezzlement (Edgard Garrido/Reuters)

Homicide rates in Mexico’s southeastern state of Veracruz have skyrocketed to record levels, and some now call it the country’s biggest mass grave.

In a sobering new report, “Veracruz: Fixing Mexico’s State of Terror,” the International Crisis Group describes the crime- and corruption-plagued region as “emblematic of the challenges facing the country as a whole.” Veracruz has at least 2,750 unresolved disappearance cases, but civil society groups say as many as 20,000 people could be missing.

Just this week, police discovered a note near the tortured bodies of two women and nine men. “You want a war, you’ll get a war,” it reportedly read. Veracruz Gov. Miguel Ángel Yunes Linares said the killings, like more than 70 percent of recent homicide cases, were linked to organized crime gangs.

Veracruz atrocities largely stem from political failures that include ineffective law enforcement strategies, systemic obstruction of justice and a lack of judicial accountability, the International Crisis Group report says.

The recent history of Veracruz, the gruesome details of which are starting to emerge, underlines the crisis not of one state administration but of the Mexican political system as a whole, where a well-intended democratic transition has fallen short of expectations and become corroded by organized crime. The ease with which political power-holders have been able to pursue criminal ambitions points to structural weaknesses in the democratic system.

The rise of organized crime throughout the country reflects Veracruz’s evolution from a base for drug trafficking to a “set of criminal enterprises,” according to the report. Crimes, including extortion and kidnapping, have been on the rise at both the state and federal levels in recent years.

The International Crisis Group calls on the U.S. and other governments to increase pressure on Mexican leaders to address root causes of the nation’s organized crime epidemic, and refocus strategies for resolving the crisis. Support must be directed away from militarization and toward anti-graft efforts, the group explains.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post

Related: More and More People Are Being Murdered in Mexico — and Once More Drug Cartels Are to Blame (The Los Angeles Times)

Related: Deadly Turf War for Control of El Chapo's Empire Erupts in Mexico (USA Today)

Related: Violence in Guerrero, Mexico Claims Yet Another Journalist’s Life (PanAm Post)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!