The kidnapping of four US citizens last week in the Mexican city of Matamoros has sparked a serious diplomatic crisis between the two neighboring countries. The event – which ended with the release of two of those kidnapped and the death of the other two – has served as a pretext for Republicans to pressure the Government of Joe Biden to include drug cartels in the list of terrorist organizations, a measure that would open the door for the US army to carry out operations on Mexican soil. The chances of this policy being put into practice under the Democratic presidency are almost nil, but the López Obrador government has taken advantage of the situation to claim its sovereignty and launch a campaign to discourage the Republican vote among Mexicans living in the United States.
The Matamoros case has reactivated latent tensions on both sides of the Rio Grande due to insecurity. After spending four days kidnapped, on March 7, the Mexican authorities found Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown, Eric Williams and Latavia Washington handcuffed in a cabin. Two of them were dead, one had received three bullet wounds in the leg and another was unharmed. According to what they declared after their release, an armed group intercepted them a few hours after arriving in Matamoros, where they were going to undergo an aesthetic operation. Authorities believe the criminals mistook them for members of a rival group. The newspaper El Universal has confirmed that at least three of the kidnapped had criminal records for robbery, manufacturing and drug trafficking.
One day after his release, Mexican authorities found five suspected kidnappers tied up on a street in Matamoros. Next to them was a message written on a piece of cardboard, in which the Gulf cartel explained that they had decided to “hand over those directly responsible” for a kidnapping that they allegedly committed “under their own determination and indiscipline.” So far there are six detainees for this case that has generated a political earthquake on both sides of the border. Several legislators from the most radical bloc of the Republican Party took advantage of the incident to present before Congress an initiative that allows the creation of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), which would allow the use of the Armed Forces to fight the main drug cartels.
“Two of the four Americans kidnapped by the cartels in Mexico were killed and we have not yet declared the cartels a military objective. It is time that we authorize military force against them,” said Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw, one of the signatories of the bill. initiative, who called on López Obrador to “stop defending his narco friends and take action to prevent fentanyl trafficking. Calm down with your lies about a supposed military invasion. We just want our military forces to work together. Or would you prefer that we Mexico is conquered by the narcos? Along the same lines, other conservative leaders, such as Michael Waltz, demanded that Washington make the decision “with or without the consent” of Mexico since, in their opinion, the AMLO government has allowed the country to become “a sanctuary of narcoterrorists”.
Visibly offended, López Obrador assured that “Mexico is respected. We are not a protectorate, nor a colony of the United States.” The Mexican president described as “wimps, interventionists and arrogant” the Republicans who are promoting a proposal that he equates with “an invasion” and that responds, according to the complaint, to “a campaign against Mexico by conservative politicians who do not want it to be continue transforming the country for the good of Mexicans”. AMLO recalled that his Government has reinforced operations to stop fentanyl trafficking, a substance that has caused a true epidemic in the United States, with more than 107,000 fatalities in 2021, and regretted that its neighbors do not first take measures in their own territory : “Here we do not produce fentanyl, why don’t they fight the US cartels that distribute fentanyl? Why don’t they address their serious problem of social decomposition? Why do they even allow drugs to be legal in USA?”.
In the midst of this diplomatic crisis, the Mexican president received a delegation of Democratic and Republican legislators this Monday at the National Palace, to whom he explained the guidelines of his security strategy, based on the hugs, not bullets doctrine, which has left a record number of close to 150,000 homicides in the six-year term. Despite the fact that the United States recommends that its citizens avoid traveling to 30 of the 32 states of the neighboring country, López Obrador assured that the growing arrival of American tourists to Mexico justifies that “Mexico is safer than the United States.”
“We are going to be insisting that not a vote of Mexicans, of Hispanics, of those who love their homeland, not a vote for the Republicans. We are not going to allow the dignity of Mexico to be affected,” said the Mexican president. The Foreign Secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, traveled to Washington this Tuesday to meet with fifty consuls who have been instructed to discourage the Republican vote among the almost 12 million Mexicans who are authorized to vote in the United States: “We are not going to allow them to run over Mexico. With this cost in human lives, how dare these gentlemen question our commitment or, worse still, ask for an intervention in our country? Despite the pressure from the Republicans, the Biden government sent a letter to López Obrador last Monday reiterating that his government does not share the initiative and will respect the sovereignty of Mexico.
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