It was a hectic weekend in Chiapas. The Pakal Immediate Reaction Force (FRIP), a new command of the Chiapas security forces, was preparing to carry out 25 drug-related raids in Comitán on Sunday. The municipal police tried to prevent this: they broke into the offices of C5, the public surveillance camera network, and held its operators at gunpoint. Then, according to the authorities’ account, they blocked the roads to prevent the FRIP officers from entering. They forced the local population to help them. When the new shock group was able to access the town, they arrested 92 police officers. They are accused of collaborating with organized crime.
It was an operation with few precedents in the country’s recent history. Another 13 alleged drug traffickers were arrested by the 92 corrupt agents. The roadblocks also resulted in the arrest of 30 civilians. A total of at least 135 new inmates in the cells of the southern state.
The announcement, made this Monday by the State Prosecutor, Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, has not caused a great commotion. Chiapas has been living since 2021 in a crossfire, between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, which has unleashed an unprecedented crisis of violence in the region. Complaints and indications of the infiltration of criminal organizations at the three levels of government – federal, state and local – have been common in recent years by human rights organizations and even the Catholic Church. What has been less common is to see these complaints turned into legal actions.
The violence of the cartels has increased more on the border with Guatemala, the Sierra Mariscal, the Lacandon jungle and the Highlands. At an intermediate point between the hot spots is Comitán, the municipality to which the almost one hundred arrested police officers belonged. The agents tried to prevent an operation against 25 businesses, suspected of being used as drug sales points by organized crime, according to the state prosecutor’s office. The Public Ministry has indicated that the 92 detainees were leaking information to drug traffickers. In the same operation, another 13 people have been captured and marijuana, crystal, cocaine and cash have been seized.
Llaven Abarca has linked the massive operation to the crisis of violence in Chiapas, a statement that, in practice, contradicts the official version. Both the federal and state governments have resisted calling the conflict a conflict, while the number of people who have had to leave their homes is counted in the tens of thousands, massacres occur every day and fear is taking hold in the region.
Eduardo Ramírez, the new governor of Chiapas, took office on December 8. His first official measure was the creation of FRIP, made up of 500 police officers, 10 armored vehicles, 200 pickup trucks and four helicopters. At his inauguration, he promised that “peace will return to the roads of Chiapas,” a tacit recognition of the violence that had not occurred under his predecessor, Rutilio Escandón. The former governor, brother-in-law of Adán Augusto López, a senior member of Morena, the ruling party, was awarded the Miami consulate after a political administration marked by insecurity.
Government of Chiapas
After the arrest of the 92 police officers, Ramírez promised a change in security policy: “There is no room for impunity here, that is over. Just because they helped in the electoral process does not mean they have a bit of impunity. The issue of insecurity is very sensitive for Chiapas. Mayors and public security directors must be aligned with our strategy and anyone who has collusion with organized crime will face the law.”
Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador never acknowledged the problem and downplayed it on numerous occasions, limiting it to specific municipalities. His successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, has not referred to the Chiapas conflict directly, but the operation and the formation of FRIP seem to indicate a distancing from the former president’s positions. Before the arrest of the 92 agents, Ramírez and the president held a meeting on security. “I have good news for Chiapas, there will be full support from our Armed Forces, the National Guard, the Mexican Army, the Navy, and all the corporations that are immersed in this responsibility,” the Chiapas governor celebrated this Monday.
Source: elpais
