Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Thursday that the United States is “jointly responsible” for the wave of violence that is ravaging Sinaloa. The president reproached Washington for not taking the Mexican government into account in the operation to capture Ismael The May Zambada did not even consider the impact of the arrest south of the border. After a couple of weeks without official updates on the case, the Mexican president made a new call for his American counterparts to be transparent about the circumstances of the arrest and detail what agreement they reached with Los Chapitos to carry it out. “Due to that agreement, which we still do not know what it consisted of, it caused us in Sinaloa the confrontation that is taking place,” said López Obrador. The war between El Mayo and Los Chapitos has left almost 50 murders in the northwestern state, a historic stronghold of the Sinaloa Cartel, since last September 9.
The capture of El Mayo, who landed unexpectedly alongside Joaquín Guzmán López (son of El Chapo) at a small rural airport in New Mexico, has raised tensions between Mexico and the United States. Mexican authorities made public that they did not participate in the arrest operation nor were they consulted before the arrest, and were only notified by the White House until it materialized on the afternoon of July 25. In the days that followed, López Obrador revealed that multiple U.S. agencies had been in contact for years with Los Chapitos to sound out the possibility of their surrender. Washington, however, has been tight-lipped about whether there is an agreement with El Chapo’s heirs and whether there are ongoing negotiations with Ovidio Guzmán López, alias The Mouseextradited in September of last year, to bring down other drug lords in exchange for a reduced sentence.
“An explanation is required because if we are now facing a situation of instability and confrontation in Sinaloa, it is because they made this decision,” said López Obrador, who described the arrest operation as “incorrect” and “illegal.” President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum regretted that there was no coordination between the two governments to carry out the arrest and joined in the demand that Washington communicate what the agreement was with Los Chapitos. “We are also interested in not having fentanyl reach the United States, but the United States has to do its own thing, we have to do our own thing in our country, and coordinate, collaborate,” she told reporters.
The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) opened its own investigation to clarify what happened in Mexican territory in the hours before Zambada’s arrest and announced a formal accusation against Joaquín Guzmán López, whom it considers the main suspect in the kidnapping of El Mayo. The FGR acknowledged that it has doubts about the whereabouts of Ovidio, his younger brother, and hinted that he may also be linked to the plot by Los Chapitos to hand over their former ally. The revenge of Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel and old partner of El Chapo, took six weeks to arrive, but it has sown chaos in Culiacán, the state capital, with executions, shootings, drug blockades and dozens of forced disappearances.
Wednesday ended with nine violent deaths, the second highest number since hostilities began, according to official figures. In the morning, four bodies were reported found on the Mexico 15 highway, at the southern exit of Culiacán, one of the hot spots of the clashes. Two of the bodies were decapitated. One man was executed in the community of El Melón, south of the city, and another was killed in the Ampliación El Barrio neighborhood, on the eastern flank of the capital. There was also an attack against a military convoy in the Genaro Estrada neighborhood, in the center, which resulted in one person arrested and two vehicles seized. In the neighboring municipality of Elota, two other homicides by gunshot were reported, reported the state Attorney General’s Office.
The violence continued until Thursday, with the discovery of a murdered person in the Costera neighborhood, south of the city, according to the newspaper Northwest. The victim was naked and her body had signs of torture. The deadliest day was last Sunday, in the middle of the celebration of Independence Day, with 14 homicides in the State. Governor Rubén Rocha has pushed for the return to in-person classes and the reactivation of the economy, which has suffered million-dollar losses after 10 days of paralysis, but the population is afraid to go out on the streets and expose themselves to crossfire and blockades. “We want to achieve tranquility,” he said. Rocha and López Obrador have insisted that the deployment of more than 2,200 members of the Armed Forces gives the State sufficient capacity to quell violence and, at the same time, they have minimized the latest wave of violence. “Sinaloa is not as it is thought, that it is out of control,” said the president.
López Obrador questioned the US strategy against drug trafficking, which relies on the capture of major criminal bosses to stop the flow of drugs. “How does it help to stop the US drug addiction problem, with objectivity and realism?” he said about the capture of Zambada. “You cannot speak of a relationship of cooperation when unilateral measures are taken,” added the president. This is the most aired claim by the Mexican government after the capture of the 76-year-old drug lord, at a time when the consequences of insecurity are palpable. But the violence has also brought criticism of López Obrador’s security policy, which has chosen to inhibit and contain clashes, but not confront the warring factions.[El fin de la violencia] “It doesn’t depend on us, it depends on the antagonistic groups to stop confronting each other,” said Jesús Leana, commander of the third military region, this week in statements that called into question the capacity of the Mexican State and the president’s strategy.
“We have to maintain a relationship of respect and good neighborliness with the United States,” López Obrador said. The president ruled out new tensions with Washington after the approval of the controversial judicial reform, which requires the election of judges and magistrates by popular vote, but refused to meet with Ambassador Ken Salazar to heal wounds before leaving power on October 1. The worst fracture within the Sinaloa Cartel in more than a decade has become one of the main red flags in the country less than two weeks before Claudia Sheinbaum takes office as Mexico’s first female president.
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