Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
On Monday, December 30, 2024, El Universal published the following eight-column headline: “Morena sees armed uprisings if the US intervenes”.
I found the article alarming. Days later, I realized that security analysts, experts in international relations, political scientists, and opposition political parties had not reacted at all. Everyone’s mind was on the end of the year, with its expectations and worries.
But the note relating the content of a document “distributed to Morenistas in the Senate” was extremely worrying and, by the way, revealing the thinking of the hard core of Morena in power. I consulted reliable Morenista sources within the Senate and verified what I assumed: it was a document directly from the pen of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, delivered through his front man, the leader of the Morenistas in that legislative body, Adán Augusto López.
Therefore, the first relevant aspect of the document is AMLO’s public positioning before the security policy of the President and her leading operator, Omar García Harfuch. It is common knowledge that AMLO sabotaged Harfuch’s candidacy for the CDMX, considering him a representative of the “old security policy” (read García Luna and Calderón) that contradicts his policy due to the agreements developed during the previous six-year term with operators of the Sinaloa cartel.
Since the document published in El Universal had not provoked any reaction, I decided to upload to X a brief summary of the most important contents of the document issued by the hand of AMLO. At the last count before writing this article, it had had more than half a million views. The interest has been enormous.
I was asked many questions about how I obtained the document. They were all surprised when I informed them it was published in El Universal on Monday, December 30, 2024. It was not my speculation or “fake news”. It was a real document in the hands of Morenista senators. The comments were diverse. An interesting one was this: “If it is true and it is not fake news, Claudia should immediately expel AMLO from the country and send him to Cuba”.
The document reveals the thinking of the hard-line Morenismo, linked to the Bolivarian and the Cuban revolutions, which considers Daniel Ortega and his wife to be worthy representatives of the “pure” thinking of the Latin American socialist revolutions. It is the wing of Morena that believes that it is its duty to defend “the victory” of Maduro in Venezuela and that therefore, it affirms that Mexico must attend his inauguration on January 10 in Caracas. Will the Mexican Foreign Minister attend? Will our ambassador De Gyves, who is more of a Bolivarian militant than a member of Morena?
The document vindicates the policy of hugs, not bullets. It says: “The implementation of operations that prioritize the use of violence against the cartels would represent a contradiction with the rhetoric that has been put forward since the last six-year term, making it possible to create a distance with society and the federal government”.
This comment is expressly against the presence and activity of Garcia Harfuch in Sinaloa. It is an indirect criticism of the President, assuming that she endorses Garcia Harfuch’s presence in his work in that state, seeking to contain, control, and dismember the Sinaloa cartel. Indirectly, it also questions the Enjambre operations in the State of Mexico and other states, ordered by Garcia Harfuch.
The document states that the supposed closeness between the people and the government is because the government does not use force to control drug trafficking or organized crime. Is it also the express confession that this “closeness” allowed Morena to win the elections, drug traffickers, and party holding hands?
Another section of the document states: “Different groups, encouraged by the opposition narrative, could carry out social movements that recriminate the existence of foreign military elements within the territory; revolts or armed uprisings could occur in certain territories”. Despite the drafting difficulties, the idea is clear.
According to AMLO, the opposition encourages U.S. military intervention in Mexico. Even as a hypothesis, that statement is clearly fallacious and a deliberate lie. However, rhetorically, it supports his thesis that a social insurrection would be legitimate against any kind of U.S. intervention in national territory.
Obviously, he is still burning for the operation that extracted Zambada from the country. And it shows an unusual aggressiveness. The threat of insurrection goes to everyone: the U.S. government, Trump, the President, the Army, and Garcia Harfuch. The former president is talking about legitimizing an armed uprising in the country.
Under what conditions could such an uprising take place? Would it be an agreement of “social groups” united by drug trafficking? Or would it imply an agreement with a sector of the national Army that may feel angry and relegated by García Harfuch’s security policies?
The former president’s threat should not be minimized. It is striking that, barely three months after leaving the presidency, he is feeling this level of danger to himself. A threatening ex-president is a danger to the whole country, its institutions, and its legal stability.
Obviously, he is not referring to the Cuban, Venezuelan, or Russian security agencies that he allowed to operate freely in Mexico. He does not feel threatened by them. He feels threatened by the United States and its ability to carry out effective punitive actions with impunity on national territory.
Suddenly, he turned his analysis of the document to the renegotiation of the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC. He suggests that the possible declaration of the cartels as terrorist groups may be an excuse that Trump wants to terminate any type of trade agreement with Mexico, accusing it of being a narco-state or extracting new benefits in the framework of the renegotiation of the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC. Finally, it concludes that “President-elect Trump may make use of drones to attack the cartels, even escalating to conducting special military operations in Mexico, without the approval, cooperation or knowledge of the Mexican government.”
The document presented by AMLO to the Morenista senators gives the clear idea that there is fear among past and current Morena high authorities of the advent of Trump to the Presidency of their country.
It is noteworthy that the immigration issue is not mentioned in the document. There is a reason for that. It is not the priority issue. The priority is the issue of security, terrorism, and Morena’s links with leftist radical groups in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
That is the central point of Trump’s future foreign policy towards Mexico. Migrants are a collateral issue.
Hence, this is the defensive origin of AMLO’s attack.
@rpascoep
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