Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The discovery of clandestine graves and crematoriums in Jalisco and Tamaulipas opens a new chapter on the disappeared in Mexico. It forces national and international public recognition of the magnitude of the violence, death, and organized crime in our country.
It also happens at the worst possible moment in our history, with a US government willing to use all these elements to justify its “soft but categorical” interventionism in our territory. The international press talks about the “Mexican Auschwitz” because of the number of crematoria, the piles of clothing of the victims, and the burnt skulls and body parts scattered everywhere. The silences of the Mexican state apparatus, from the highest to the lowest level and close to the phenomenon, are also a regular and unnerving fact that feeds the culture of autism prevalent in society, with the notable exception of the relatives and friends of the searchers.
It will no longer be possible to ignore the problem, among other reasons, because it has been well-known, documented, and published by searchers’ citizen organizations for many years. The National Search Commission (CNB) itself has registered the existence of 2,863 clandestine or non-clandestine mass graves throughout the country.
The tragedy is that it was already known, but it was being ignored as part of the State’s shameful alliance with drug trafficking. In other words, it was ignored so as not to create a situation like the one we are experiencing today: horror at our own passive and silent behavior as a society, similar to German society’s response to Hitler’s atrocities. But today, there are media and social networks that disseminate facts like these, appealing to the sensitivity of the citizenry. It is now impossible to hide what is happening behind a curtain of official silence.
A pattern of “administration” of the data and figures describing the confrontation between drug traffickers and the security forces of the Mexican State is beginning to emerge that should concern us. Apparently, there is an attempt to “negotiate and administer” the statistics of death and violence in Mexico. Part of the lie about violence in Mexico is produced by our authorities, who believe they can hide the extent of the problem by twisting the official figures.
The underlying tragedy is that we lie to ourselves.
The data shows how the previous six-year term distorted the figures to hide the tragedy of the violence, suffering, and pain caused by official indolence or, worse, by official complicity.
The former President demanded that the National Search Commission (CNB) hand over its data to the government for review and subsequent “correction”. The president intended to leave no trace of how the number of disappeared people in the country had grown during his administration. They had grown so much that they exceeded the total number of missing people during the twelve years of the Calderón and Peña Nieto governments combined. When the CNB refused to hand over the data, the government forced its director to resign. The government intended to “disappear the disappeared”.
In essence, the government’s intention revolved around two purposes. One was to project a smaller number of disappearances during his government. But he also wanted to subsume a significant number of intentional homicides under the column of disappearances to be able to claim a reduction in those homicides, which was also a much higher number than those registered during the twelve years of Calderón and Peña Nieto.
The CNB registered more than 113,000 disappearances, most of them during López Obrador’s six-year term. Hence, the president was angry with his figures. The CNB confirmed at least 25 disappearances per day during that term!
There were also 94 intentional homicides a day during López Obrador’s six-year term, despite or because of the “hugs, not bullets” policy. Almost 200,000 people died during that term, compared to 120,000 under Calderón. López’s “peace” brought at least 80,000 more deaths than in the same period of Calderón’s six-year term.
But the current government is producing equally worrying figures, apparently using the same method of “transferring” homicides to disappearances, in this case with the express purpose, or pretext, of ingratiating itself with the aggressive US administration.
The current administration reports 40 disappearances a day, 60% more than during López Obrador’s six-year term! Although she has only been in power for six months, the trends and criminal dynamics are there.
Under this government, intentional homicides have been reduced to 77 per day, down from 94 per day in the previous administration. The problem is that under the current government, intentional homicides are decreasing, but the number of disappearances is increasing.
The discovery of the crematoriums should come as no surprise to anyone. This discovery even brings to mind the famous “pozolero”, Santiago Meza López, accused of having dissolved at least 300 people in caustic soda and water in Tijuana, Baja, California. He was arrested in 2009 by the Mexican army and is currently being held in a high-security prison. The historical line between the “pozolero” and the crematoriums of Jalisco is direct. It is the line traced by organized crime, led by drug trafficking, and fueled by the complicity of authorities at all three levels of government.
If the official practice of lowering homicides and raising the number of disappearances is confirmed, what is most worrying is that the new government is using the same strategy of adjusting data to create a false narrative about its “successes against organized crime” without making a substantive strategic change in the way it deals with crime between the last and current governments. That is to say, it will continue with “hugs, not bullets,” but it will try to convince the US side with fabricated figures.
The underlying issue is that a strategic change in the face of violence and crime in Mexico implies that the current government must be capable of decisively putting an end to the expressions and actions of the alliance between politics and drug trafficking. The legacy of Claudia Sheinbaum’s government will depend almost exclusively on the response given to this historical crossroads.
@rpascoep
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