How Mexico Is Losing the War Against Cartels
A series of violent incidents last month revealed the deadly power of the cartels, and the weakness of the state.
by Deborah Bonello
Nov 8 2019, 2:58pm
CARTEL CHRONICLES is an ongoing series of dispatches from the front lines of the drug war in Latin America.
The automatic gunfire started just after dawn in the tiny, rural town of el Aguaje, southern Mexico. More than 30 gunmen ambushed a group of state policemen out on patrol, killing 14. Walkie-talkie audio later posted on social media depicted a grim picture of the aftermath. One policeman pleads for backup as his colleague groans in pain the background. “I’m dying,†he says. Photos and TV footage of the scene showed police trucks burned out, officers dead on the ground, bits of brain on the road.
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Just a few days later, Mexico’s federal government experienced a different defeat when it attempted to arrest the son of Joaquin “El Chapo†Guzmán, Ovidio, in Culiacán, the capital of the state of Sinaloa, heartland of the Sinaloa Cartel. After initially detaining Ovidio, Mexican soldiers were forced to let him go when hundreds of cartel henchman surrounded the house in which the arrest took place. They brought the city to a standstill, burning trucks and firing on government forces. Videos showed civilian gunmen marauding around the city in pick-ups mounted with automatic weapons, firing machine guns into the streets.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kz4jey/how-mexico-is-losing-the-war-against-cartels
