Now that one of the world’s most wanted and influential men, Archivaldo Joaquin Guzman, aka/El Chapo, is, with U.S. help, in the custody of Mexican authorities for the third time, the question arises: how much of a difference will it make? Will the mass slaughter of the last decade during which upwards of 50,000 civilians have been killed, now draw to a close? Here we have two opposing views from Mexico on the subject.
First, offering the positive line proffered by both U.S. and Mexican officials, in an article headlined El Chapo’s Capture Will Help Restore Mexico’s Reputation, Milenio columnist Juan Ignacio Zavala writes that this is a day for people to congratulate the authorities without reservation, and to begin using this success to rebrand Mexico in the eyes of the world:
The participation of the United States in the operation should be seen as par for the course. Sharing information is a basic activity among those seeking a joint result. Of course, the gringos always make a nuisance of themselves by being the first to make the announcement – this time an “official” from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. As a consequence yesterday morning, the first photographs came from The New York Times and CNN. I don’t see a problem here. The Mexican government did what it had to do: it maintained control over their information and acted in a timely manner.
The capture of El Chapo will also reflect on the country’s global image. If it is undeniable that, particularly in some areas, we suffer from the scourge of organized crime and violent images that impact perceptions abroad, so, too, must the opposite be true when a criminal, whose illegal operations have reached other countries, has been captured. If the effects of criminal violence generated by these mafia groups are the most distressing depiction of our current situation, effective lightning actions are the way to reverse the picture to that of a country which energetically and professionally fights those who bet against the law.
Today is not a day to demand more. Without haggling, we must congratulate the government.
Then, for La Jornada, in an article headlined Capture of El Chapo: Like a Drop of Water in Rain, security and justice analyst Simon Vargas Aguilar pours cold water on the celebration over capturing El Chapo:
The detention of one kingpin doesn’t guarantee improved security in the country, because, as noted by Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, to damage the structure of a criminal organization like the Sinaloa Cartel, which is located in 54 countries, one would need to fill in the gaping holes of the Mexican state and the other states in which Sinaloa is located, with functionally-independent agencies operating in unison, a condition that is spectacularly absent in Mexico.
With this situation coupled with the recapture of El Chapo, society demands to see all legal businesses under his control dismantled, and public servants, politicians, and members of civil society that helped him reach such heights, put behind bars, “because El Chapo Guzman and his people have hundreds of Mexican politicians in their pocket,” as Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia put it, adding that it’s time to start seeing politicians arrested, and their real assets and property seized and forfeited.
Many questions remain, for example, how and under what circumstances was El Chapo captured in 1993? How did he manage to escape on January 19, 2001, from the maximum security Puente Grande prison? Who facilitated his escape? Who allowed him to reach this level of influence – and on a global scale?
Without these answers, and even more; without reducing the availability of drugs and combating the collateral damage to victims of civil society; without the reduction and elimination of crimes associated with drug trafficking, such as kidnapping and extortion; and without the destruction of the structures of the rest of the cartels, the recapture of El Chapo is in vain.
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