For most of the last six years, Mexico has avoided a crime crackdown. The country employed a “hugs, not bullets” strategy to slowing criminal behavior. Sounds nice, right? Well, it wasn’t working.
A month into new President Claudia Sheinbaum’s term, Mexico’s government began changing tactics. The new administration is more willing to use force to stop violent activity by powerful cartels—or gangs—that have brought turmoil for decades. The National Guard is now equipped with weapons and military-style authority to help keep order.
The problem of gang violence isn’t new. In the early1980s, Mexican cartels banded together to become La Familia Michoacana (LFM). The government declared war on criminal organizations like LFM in 2006. Ever since, each president has tried new tactics to stomp them out.
Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came up with the “hugs, not bullets” slogan after he was elected in 2018. His idea was to encourage young Mexicans to avoid choosing crime by offering them grants and scholarships, presumably to better themselves through education. Still, cartels got much stronger during Obrador’s six-year term.
With the government taking a weak stance on law enforcement, cartels did much damage in the country. About 30,000 people have died from gang violence each year since 2018.
Sheinbaum hasn’t said she’s against the “hugs, not bullets” approach. But her actions show that she’s ready for a change.
Getting tough on crime comes with challenges for the new president. Mexico’s National Guard and law enforcement officers aren’t trained for combat.
In October, army and National Guard troops chased gunmen and accidently killed three innocent bystanders. The next month, the National Guard erroneously opened fire on a truck carrying migrants.
Migrants in particular have been endangered because of the cartels. For a fee, gangs smuggle migrants from far-away countries to the United States. It’s a very profitable business.
Once, Central Americans made up the majority of those crossing Mexico to reach the United States. Those migrants paid the cartels a few hundred dollars each for help.
But more recently, smugglers opened a new route through the Darién Gap at the border of Panama and Colombia. That’s the only land path connecting Central and South America. And it’s one of the most dangerous immigration routes. Immigrants from South America flow north through the Gap. But to improve their chances of survival, many pay thousands in fees to get across with promises of safety. Cartels who provide the guides become even wealthier and more powerful.
Juan Ibarrola is a military analyst. He says of the former president’s gentle policies, “The worst thing he could have done, the worst error he could have made, was not to use legal force against criminal violence.”
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. — Romans 13:3
Why? It’s good for leaders to use lawful force for the protection of innocent lives. Our God delights in mercy but He does not overlook justice.
