Monday’s birthday party massacre in Ciudad Juárez is turning into something of a political emergency for Calderón. Both the Senate and angry family members are blaming him for the killings. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission is sending personnel to offer “legal advice” to family members of the victims. And a group of NGOs is seizing the moment to call for Calderón to resign.
Source: Excélsior
He’s listening. In a speech during his official visit to Japan, Calderón retreated from his emphasis on military/law enforcement solutions and floated the suggestion of “an integral strategy including social justice, addiction treatment and prevention, a search for employment opportunities, of recreational and educational opportunities for young people.”
Of course, this is silly, considering that the problem in Juarez isn’t jobless, shiftless, drug-addicted young people, but well-funded, ruthless, mafioso adults who act with impunity and are probably after more in life than a high school-equivalency degree and a game of ping-pong at the local rec center.
The fact that the outcry over a single incident of brutality perpetrated on innocents could cause Calderón to backtrack from his military solution so quickly tells me that the political situation might be more vulnerable to terrorism than I had previously thought.
Still, the second part of Calderón’s response appears to be an attempt to demonstrate the effectiveness of his strategy by eliminating the perpetrators of the massacre as abruptly as possible. The hope, perhaps, is that national outrage over the incident will be eliminated along with them. Thus, we have an incredibly efficient military operation that managed to just straight-up kill one of the leaders of the hit squad and capture several others.
Amazing, the efficiency of the Mexican military when it’s politically expedient.
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[...] trip to Ciudad Juárez in an attempt to stem the political fallout from a massacre in which narcos gunned down 15 innocent youths. He was met with angry protests. In his speech, he talked about a new strategy for combating crime [...]