This week, Mexican President Andr茅s Manuel L贸pez Obrador won the recall referendum he鈥檇 ordered. That was the official term for the plebiscite, anyway. The honest description would be shameless sham 鈥� a federal money-wasting stunt by the leftist L贸pez Obrador to make himself look loved.
But what made it especially pointless is the reality that L贸pez Obrador isn鈥檛 the boss in Mexico.
Gangs are.
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Even as scant referendum ballots were being counted Sunday night 鈥� voter turnout was a laughable 17% 鈥� gunmen burst into a home in Tultepec outside Mexico City and massacred eight people, including four children. Two weeks ago, the severed heads of six people were found on top of a car in Chilapa de Alvarez in southern Mexico. A month before that, 17 men attending a wake in San Jos茅 de Gracias in western Mexico were lined up and executed with automatic weapons. I could go on 鈥� and on.
Homicides in Mexico, which hit record levels in recent years, dipped about 3% last year. But the country鈥檚 proliferating drug gangs are making up for it this year with a ghastly surge that L贸pez Obrador, an authoritarian populist, would rather deny. Or blame on media 鈥渆xaggeration,鈥� as he did recently, even though seven Mexican journalists have already been murdered this year 鈥� the total killed in all of 2021.
READ MORE: Right now it's hard to root against 鈥� but harder to root for 鈥� El Salvador's Bukele
L贸pez Obrador can鈥檛 stand being reminded that Mexico鈥檚 gangs are more powerful than he is 鈥� and certainly more powerful than the country鈥檚 judicial institutions, which can only solve 2% of all murders. (By comparison, legal experts here are wringing their hands because the U.S. murder solve rate has fallen below 60%.)
L贸pez Obrador鈥檚 only consolation is that he鈥檚 hardly alone in this hemisphere. We鈥檙e obsessed in the Americas, especially in Miami, with identifying left-wing and right-wing governments. But New World political science needs to make more space in its textbooks and journals for a third category: gang-wing government, countries that for all intents and purposes are controlled by drug, kidnapping and extortion mafias.
Latin America has to approach this horror show as the Mad Max dystopia it is 鈥� not to squash information about these brazen butchers but get more of it out there to bring the butchers down.
Gang-neutralized leaders like L贸pez Obrador don鈥檛 want us to ponder that dark state of affairs. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele, another dictatorial populist, just rammed through a Putin-esque law making it a crime for the media or anyone else to 鈥渢ransmit messages鈥� about or by the country鈥檚 gangs. Their recent nationwide murder spree, including 62 people killed on one Saturday alone, reminded us they鈥檙e even more omnipotent than Mexico鈥檚 mobsters.
But their violence re-erupted because they suddenly decided they no longer liked a controversial cooperation pact that Bukele, according to well documented media reports that he of course denies, had felt obligated to make with them to help reduce El Salvador鈥檚 own medieval murder rate.
BLOODSHED BENEFACTORS
So it鈥檚 time Latin America鈥檚 political players approach this horror show as the Mad Max dystopia it is 鈥� and admit that rather than try to squash information about these brazen butchers, they need to get even more of it out there to help the world help them bring the butchers down.
One of the biggest mistakes I ever made as a foreign correspondent was in 1999, after I鈥檇 spent weeks visiting a Mexican prison to talk with the convicted assassin of a high-ranking politico 鈥� and with the fellow gangbangers he had there with him.
The killer was peddling his claim about being hired by the brother of a former president to pull the trigger. That was the article I wrote. But I stupidly sidelined the more important story I鈥檇 gleaned from these 诲颈补产贸濒颈肠辞蝉 about who they were, why they committed their crimes, how they rationalized them 鈥� and why they believed so much of Mexico鈥檚 political and business class indulged them.
I think about them today when I see gangs in Haiti 鈥� who Haitians will tell you do run their country now 鈥� holding press conferences while holding AK-47s. Haitian gang kidnappings were up 58% from the same period last year 鈥� and U.S. officials say more and more high-powered weapons are being trafficked into Haiti by the gangs鈥� political and business patrons.
We need to know who those bloodshed benefactors are 鈥� because having more information like that will help keep the gang-wing from gaining control of even more of this hemisphere.
