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Zugzwang or the peace of the graves

2021-07-21T22:29:45.902Z


Something would have to be done before the self-defense strategy is the only viable alternative and the territory is populated by paramilitary organizations.


Members of the new self-defense group called "El Machete", which aims to combat criminal groups in the indigenous Tzotzil San José Tercero community, parade during their presentation in the municipality of Pantelhó, Chiapas.ISAAC GUZMAN / AFP

In terms of public security in Mexico we are reaching the worst nightmare, something that chess players know as Zugzwang: that situation in which any possible movement only worsens the condition in which we find ourselves. The communities of the sierra and the jungle have every right to defend themselves as best they can from the organized crime cartels that take away their lands, take their sons to be recruited as hitmen or their daughters to be raped. Life first, before respect for a legal order or a justice incapable of protecting them. Faced with the dilemma of abandoning their villages, which several thousand are doing, others have decided to defend themselves with weapons in hand.

But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is also right when he affirms that the recourse to organize in self-defense groups has failed time and time again. Either because they end up infiltrated or prostituted by the cartels themselves or they lead to violent conflicts between the communities themselves and their ancestral disputes. Not to mention the many outrages that an armed group set up as an improvised judge within a community supposes. The experiences of a decade ago of the groups formed in Michoacán, both in municipalities of the sierra and in the ravines of Tierra Caliente, all ended in fratricidal struggle between their leaders, in violent chiefdoms or turned into armed arms of a rival cartel. the one who haunted them originally.

A few days ago, a new organization called El Machete was announced, a group of around one hundred people from the municipality of Pantelhó, Chiapas, a predominantly indigenous community. Although precariously armed, the spokesman assured that they will try to stop the incursions of the drug cartels that are fighting for control of the mountainous area of ​​Chiapas. They affirmed that about 200 inhabitants have fallen victim to the fire of the two organizations that seek to dominate the region, and that more than 2,000 people have fled to escape the violence. They complain that neither federal forces, much less state forces, have responded to offer them any hope of safety.

I said, Zugzwang: escape means losing your heritage and venturing into the misfortunes of the migrant;

staying means amending oneself at random from the arbitrary violence of the gangs that ravage them;

and defending himself not only runs the risk of facing a more powerful enemy, but also entrusts his fate and surrenders into the arms of his own armed leaders.

This Wednesday, like every week in the president's morning conference, the military and public security authorities made a report on violence and criminal activity in the country.

According to their figures, most of the indicators are declining, but even in such official statistics the decline is so small that it becomes irrelevant for so many desperate communities.

It is becoming more and more evident that the Q4 government has bet on a strategy on two fronts, but both point to a long term that does not respond to the needs of regions that are already under fire from the cartels. On the one hand, the authorities are trying to address what they call "the causes" with a vast social program to improve the income of the popular sectors, particularly in the countryside, and offer employment alternatives to young people. So far no substantial results have been seen, perhaps because the pandemic and the consequent economic crisis swallowed up the impact of such benefits and threw several million more Mexicans into poverty. And for the rest, the alternative of earning three or five thousand pesos or ensuring a fair price for the corn harvest,it does not compete against the remuneration of 30 or 40 thousand pesos that a young man can obtain as a hit man or the price of a crop of drugs, ten times higher than a traditional crop.

The other pinch of the strategy is not that it is helping much either. The government adopted an ambitious strategy to reoccupy the territory by organizing a National Guard with about 100,000 troops and dispersing it into 248 barracks to have a constant presence throughout the country (182 of these barracks have been built so far ). But for some reason a passive dispersal has been chosen. The National Guard and the army are not directly intervening in the recovery of the territories. Which could mean that they are only in a first stage, as if they expected to have enough force to give the decisive confrontation, or they incurred in a wrong calculation, thinking that the mere presence of the federal force in a municipality would provoke the withdrawal of the gangs. criminals.Something that obviously has not happened.

The truth is that for practical purposes many communities cannot wait.

One of the justifications for the existence of the State is to be the guarantor of the security of the citizens within the territory.

From the moment a nation state implicitly renounces responsibility for stopping violence in a region, it is not in a position to demand that its inhabitants not defend themselves.

But, on the other hand, we cannot settle for a dystopian scenario in which the only solution consists in grouping ourselves together to defend ourselves on our own and, eventually, exercise justice in our own hands.

No less is the effort that the Mexican State is making to improve the conditions of the population in which the drug trafficker recruits his army of hitmen; Nor can it be minimized, however controversial, the investment in resources and attention to increase its capacity to fire and its organization against criminals. But obviously that is not enough for communities that are on fire. Something would have to be done before the self-defense strategy is the only viable alternative and the territory is populated by paramilitary organizations, even though they refer to legitimate and understandable causes. An immediate and short-term scheme is required in violent areas. It is not enough to say that we are working on the causes and the results and that in the long run peace will be achieved, because that will be the peace of the tombs.Again, the commoners might well say with Keynes: "in the long run we will all be dead."

@jorgezepedap

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-07-21

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