M3 Report
Crime in Mexico....
Critica (Hermosillo, Sonora) 6/2/09
Is Mexico a country where the State does not exercise control over parts of its territory, leaving it at the hands of crime? Various Mexicans believe
so. According to a publication in the capital’s “Milenio” daily, documents of the federal “Secretaría de Seguridad Pública” (“SSP” – Dep’t. of Public
Security) reveal that there are 980 “zones of impunity”, or of high crime incidence, in which Mexicans perceive that criminal groups carry on without
control and without the federal government and its security organs defending the citizenry from the criminals effectively. Despite repeated
statements by the Mexican government to the effect that “there isn’t a single spot of national territory that escapes from the control of the State”,
the reality is that they portray official documents about which Mexicans, in general, have a very different idea. And a highly negative one. In the
north, middle, south and east of Mexico the citizens’ perception about the power of the State is critical: thousands of Mexicans report having been
victims of crime without having received government’s help, the same in large cities, such as the Distrito federal and Monterrey, as in predominantly
rural towns. This information is found in a declassified document of the “SSP” requested by Milenio through the Federal Transparency Law following
the visit of the secretary of State of the U.S., Hillary Clinton, to Mexico. Clinton’s visit, which took place last March, ended with the delivery to
the American diplomat of a report from the Secretary of the “SSP”, Genaro Garcia Luna, who informed her of the existence of “223 areas of impunity” in
the whole country. (Thus far the full translation) When Milenio asked the “SSP” to identify those 223 areas, the answer, two months later, revealed
that the actual number is much larger than that reported to the U.S.’s Sec. of State.
Richard on the Hill
*ABROAD*, adj. At war with savages and idiots. To be a Frenchman abroad is to
be miserable; to be an American abroad is to make others miserable.
-- Ambrose Bierce, _The Enlarged Devil\'s Dictionary_
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