Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla rejected the proposal issued Sunday by the Archbishop of Morelia, Carlos Garfias Merlos, to emulate Colombia’s experience with the establishment of municipal committees for peace and reconciliation, bringing together various sectors and even establishing direct dialogue with representatives of criminal groups.
“Calling criminals to dialogue is useless; it’s a failed initiative, something that hasn’t worked even in Colombia; we can’t bring in models that have failed,” stated the Morena leader when questioned on the matter at his weekly press conference at the Casa Michoacán.
The local chief executive noted that during Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration, Colombian presidential hopeful General Óscar Naranjo was hired to advise on security and replicate the Colombian model. “In his country, this general was the creator of the self-defense forces and the White Guards, of the executions, and all this issue that continues to wreak havoc there.”
In the case of Mexico, the governor recalled, General Naranjo “was the one who intervened with his disastrous strategy in Michoacán regarding the self-defense forces under Alfredo Castillo, and, as we can see, he was the one who believed that the self-defense forces should be given weapons, weapons that are lost; it’s the ‘fast and furious’ Michoacán: they fought one cartel with the support of other cartels, multiplying the cartels, so that doesn’t have a good end.”
Ramírez Bedolla considered that the Church’s work “is a spiritual issue, a specific religious issue, but it is not our strategy; (…) the Church can grant criminals religious forgiveness, but society cannot; there are laws, there are norms, and they must be followed. (…); the Church does its social work, and it’s good that it does, but there is no possibility of sitting down with any criminal group, of agreeing on anything at all.”
The president clarified: “We have a very clear strategy; it is mandated by the head of the Armed Forces, President Claudia Sheinbaum, and she does it through the Secretary of Public Security, Omar García Harfuch, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy, the commander of the National Guard. It is a matter of intelligence, investigation, prosecution of crimes, prosecution, bringing criminals to justice. Not engaging in dialogue with them is useless.”
Source: proceso
