Federico Berrueto
The attack against Ciro Gómez Leyva is extremely serious, more transcendent than what is being made public. No publicly known elements can lead to the reasons and motivations of the crime; hopefully, the authorities have well-founded presumptions, indications, and evidence for the explainable secrecy of the investigations, which inhibits them from informing. I insist this is a criminal event of the utmost gravity, which, as President López Obrador rightly said, has effects on political stability and, as many others say, is crucial for freedom of expression.
The event calls for greater prudence and responsibility. Ciro has set an example, as he demonstrated in his programs within hours of the criminal action. With his conduct, he has shown his high professional sense and his intellectual honesty. He is exemplary in every way. Those of us who know him confirm our conviction that he is exceptional as a journalist and human being.
Without permission, this space gives way to speculation based on limited information because it is necessary to put forward unconventional hypotheses that lead us to an attitude of alertness and caution. The way in which the president is targeting those with an independent or critical editorial stance is unfortunate. However, it is possible that the criminal action was aimed at destabilizing the regime. If the assassin or assassins had succeeded, in the aftermath, López Obrador and his government would have been the most affected.
It is obligatory to question the purpose of whoever ordered the assassination of the country’s most respected and influential opinion leader. This reflection is mandatory because the hypothesis of a criminal reaction to annul a voice and a host of two news programs that show our Mexico bloodied by the presence of organized crime and the impotence of the authorities does not seem acceptable.
It is difficult to accept, but it should not be ruled out that the perpetrators were criminals who felt alluded to by Gómez Leyva’s journalistic work. From a distance and without information, it is not credible because there was no threat or anything that could anticipate action to inhibit the media. If it is true that the origin and masterminding of the attack was the work of conventional organized crime, it must be worrying that the person who ordered it did not measure the consequences of the attack; furthermore, the chances of impunity would be slim, despite the regime’s dismal record in investigating criminal acts against journalists. It must be concluded that the aftermath would force a review of the current complacent strategy toward organized crime.
It would be even more worrying if the alleged mastermind had an idea of what it would unleash so that the motivation would not so much be to annul a journalist and an uncomfortable media but to destabilize the regime or, in other words, an act with political motivation and very close to terrorist logic; that is, to sow fear in the population so that the criminal advances in his objectives concerning the State.
The possibility that the action against Gómez Leyva is part of a destabilizing motivation of the regime requires a thorough investigation by the authorities, meticulous in all its elements. I am convinced that the formal and informal opposition must move towards a form of truce, or even support, for the federal and Mexico City authorities so that it is not pressure, slander, or mistrust but the need to know the origin and motivation of the crime that will lead to the truth. For his part, López Obrador must conduct a rigorous review of all criminal targets that could lead to political instability, as he calls it.
In the atmosphere of polarization, some mistakenly assume that anything that affects the president and his government is in the interests of their cause. Considerably worse than authoritarianism and abuses of power of democratic origin is chaos, a circumstance conducive to the natural aspirations for order and tranquillity being offered at the margins of the democratic legality that governs us.
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