Federico Reyes Heroles
I read the article in Excélsior. I look at the photograph: teenagers attacking a wounded adult who was crying out for mercy with machetes. The Macheteros, that’s what they’re known as. In the Hermosillo Pueblitos Locos gang, they are skilled with technology and film their attacks on those students or citizens who dare to cross through their neighborhood. In one week, they are attributed with four attacks: one death by shooting, another by machete, another by stoning, and one more in a gang confrontation. Surprise, surprise, organized crime is behind it! Children are also involved. In the same edition, it is reported that in Huejutla, Hidalgo, a town where people take up arms and it is scary to cross the town square, Fuente Ovejuna has been revived once again. Between 2020 and 2024, Causa en Común (Common Cause) recorded 970 attempted lynchings. Evidence? What for? Impunity/Zero reports 93% impunity at the national level. Fuenteovejuna has an explanation.
In six regions, crimes against women — manslaughter, intentional injury, extortion, trafficking, and gender-based violence — increased in the first two months of the year. Most painfully, the crime of child corruption increased by 38%, according to figures from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System. Nationwide, authorities report a 27% decrease in intentional homicides. But disappearances are on the rise. Explanation? There must be one, but skepticism wins out in a country of doubts and deceptions.
While legislators ridicule themselves and the Legislative branch over the Cuauhtémoc Blanco case, demonstrating that political expediency takes precedence over ethical conviction, in Spain, Dani Alves, another well-known sportsman, goes through a process similar to Blanco’s and… is acquitted. Nobody was condemning Blanco; it was a question of investigation. The former governor puts on a show, presents himself to the state prosecutor’s office, and, once again, makes a fool of himself. The first woman president backs the former footballer. And what about sisterhood? Senator Fernández Noroña gets into trouble when he explains that he traveled first class. He has every right to do so. Who paid the difference? That’s all.
Those in power are obliged to lead by example, which is why a public career involves sacrifice. If you are not willing to pay the cost, it is better not to get involved. It is good that they are introducing electric buses in Mexico City made in Mexico. Still, the Secretary of Economy must have imagined there would be a conflict of interest if he were accompanied by the federal government’s coordinator of the Advisory Council for Business Affairs, whose family produces the buses.
The cynicism is unprecedented. The President campaigned for her candidates for the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation and stated that she had not been “notified” of the National Electoral Institute’s pronouncement: no official support intervention. It was not a question of “notification” but principles or information. To make matters worse, we are going to what Luis Carlos Ugalde of Integralia describes as “the biggest election in the history of Mexico”. However, there are not enough resources for the organization. The vote will be “uneven” as the study points out, while “voters in Mexico City will have a greater influence on the result, as they will be able to elect judges and magistrates whose decisions will have a national impact, given that the courts and tribunals that resolve disputes affecting both residents and non-residents in criminal, commercial or specialized matters in economic competition and telecommunications are concentrated in the capital”. In other words, first-class and second-class Mexicans. What is this? Conclusion: “the Federal Judiciary will lose its role as a counterweight to the executive and legislative branches”. And the local branches will continue to be vulnerable to local political and economic interests. We are already seeing this with the former rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Graue, and the former director of the Faculty of Higher Studies Aragón. Let’s add to this all the candidates who are already suspected of having links to drug traffickers or, even worse, of being their pawns.
And are we surprised by Los Macheteros?
A sad display of immorality and amorality.
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