Mexico Rated Among World’s Most Dangerous Countries Julian Resendiz - Border Report
go to original July 12, 2023

Juarez police inspect a vehicle where three people were shot to death Monday at a gas station. (Border Report)

The violence in Juarez that has claimed 16 lives in the past two days is neither surprising nor going to stop any time soon, security experts say.

Police reported the first in a string of 16 homicides shortly before midnight on Sunday, as two individuals broke into a home and gunned down a man who was sleeping. An attack at a gas station in the southern tip of the city left three men dead and two other people injured by gunfire on Monday afternoon. A body wrapped in a blanket was left on a sidewalk in the Aztecas neighborhood early Tuesday.

Juarez police have not disclosed a motive in any of the killings, which bring the number of homicides to 600 for the year. In nine out of 10 cases, they end up classifying the deaths as drug-related.

That’s not unique to Juarez. Drug-related massacres are becoming standard fare in a country that essentially allows drug cartels free reign in dealing with internal discipline – or killing each other off – in exchange for not targeting the general population, security experts say.

“If you leave certain things alone, we’re not going to mess with you. Don’t mess with the areas that are revenue-generating. It’s almost like a tradeoff. That’s the strategy of appeasement,” said Victor M. Manjarrez Jr., director of the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas at El Paso. “Mexico (in the 2000s) went after the kingpins, and it resulted in a lot of violence. This is almost the opposite approach.”

But those unwritten rules can be fragile, as violence is ramping up and at times affecting bystanders in cities bordering the United States and in tourist destinations such as Cancun, Puerto Vallarta and Tulum, experts say.

The historic violence President Felipe Calderon’s failed “kingpin” strategy brought to Mexico has been eclipsed by the number of homicides during President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs, not bullets” tenure, according to the Mexican government’s own statistics.

Read the rest at Border Report

Related: The Continuous Sacrifice of Mexican Lives at the Altar of Violence Cannot be the New Normal (Vallarta Daily News)

Related: Violence Is Increasing Under Mexico's Non-Intervention Policy on Drug Cartels (Vallarta Daily News)

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