Mexico City - The PRI government of Enrique Peña Nieto said that violence and killings have declined in Mexico (4,451 bodies have already piled up for the Peña Nieto administration, 34 per day), but neither the official word nor the promise not to lie means that the information is true.
This distrust is founded in three elements: The first is that the supposed decline of 17.1% in executions applies to the last four months of the Felipe Calderón government, but in September of 2011 he [Calderón] ordered that the information be concealed, and the Peña government has neither said that it has [those statistics] nor has [the government] presented them.
The second element of disbelief is that the Secretariat of Government Affairs [SEGOB], headed by Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, manipulates its own figures, as will be demonstrated below and, thirdly, there is evidence of a policy of concealment of relevant issues, such as the number of disappeared persons during this administration and the situation of the casinos [betting parlors, discussed below].
As if that isn't enough to foster reservations about official information on violence, Osorio Chong's call for journalists, academics and legislators to participate as witnesses to criminal developments was revealed as demagoguery the next day when Undersecretary Eduardo Sánchez, the improvised spokesperson on the matter, simply declared that option closed.
As if that isn't enough to foster reservations about official information on violence, Osorio Chong's call for journalists, academics and legislators to participate as witnesses to criminal developments was revealed as demagoguery the next day when Undersecretary Eduardo Sánchez, the improvised spokesperson on the matter, simply declared that option closed.
In this same space on Monday, April 8, analysis was reported of the evolution of the official figures of murders so far by this Peña government, and how even some media--Milenio, Reforma and La Jornada--have reported the drop, something that Osorio Chong hailed to defend his cheerful accounts that the numbers aren't much.
And they aren't much because, as specialist Edgardo Buscaglia says, the drop in homicides does not mean a drop in crime because organized crime isn't just homicides, but also money laundering, massive extortion, human trafficking, kidnapping ...
"The statistic of homicides linked to criminal groups released by Osorio Chong is simply statistical junk, since the Mexican judicial system neither processes or gets to the bottom of most homicides. Many bodies that appear shot can be linked to criminal groups, or not; but the relevant evidence is never known in order to be able to count the homicides as mafioso or not mafioso."The UN consultant told the newspaper El Financiero:
"We've had twelve years of media nonsense and smokescreens, and if the PRI wants to differentiate from its decades-long history, it has to start speaking with some truth."
And certainly: on Tuesday, April 9, Osorio Chong and Sánchez reported that 4,249 "suspected homicides related to organized crime" were reported from December to March that, together with the 202 [homicides reported] in the first week of April, totaled 4,451.
"The same indicator for the last four-month period of the previous administration reached 5,127; this means a reduction of 918 homicides, which represents a decrease of 17.1%," they pointed out and added that there was another drop of only 14% compared with the first three months of the past year [2012]: From 4,934 to 4,249, or 685 fewer.
The point is that we Mexicans do not know if this drop is certain, because--I insist--beginning in September 2011, the most violent year of his bloody administration, Calderón ordered that this information be concealed, and since then there has been no official data.
As the Peña government has not released the database for the intentional homicides from September 2001 to November 2012, but that it takes as the basis for its comparison, then [we must conclude that] their figures are unreliable and can be massaged at their convenience.
This is not a gratuitous assertion: In the numbers themselves presented by Osorio Chong, there is evidence of a downward manipulation that had already been released as official.
In statement 26 in February and statement 40 in March, the Secretariat of Government Affairs reported that in December, 1,139 murders were committed; 1,104 in January and 914 in February, "the lowest number reported in the past 40 months," for a total of 3,157.
In statement 26 in February and statement 40 in March, the Secretariat of Government Affairs reported that in December, 1,139 murders were committed; 1,104 in January and 914 in February, "the lowest number reported in the past 40 months," for a total of 3,157.
However, on Tuesday, Osorio Chong assured that in December there were 1,129 murders--ten fewer than [previously] reported--and in January 1,105--one more [than previously reported]--which means that they deducted nine intentional homicides, in order to get a total of 3,249.
This figure, to which are added the 1,101 murders committed in March and 202 in the first week of April, would total 4,460 and not 4,451.
To this manipulation is added Osorio's concealment of the number of people who have disappeared since the current government took office and that contrasts with the "transparency" given by the last administration, which exceeded 26,000 [disappeared].
Osorio also remains silent on the scandal on the betting centers operating in Mexico and that, in the twelve years of PAN governments, became a mess: On January 14, he promised that in "a couple days" he would give information on the matter. Three months have now passed and nothing.
Osorio also remains silent on the scandal on the betting centers operating in Mexico and that, in the twelve years of PAN governments, became a mess: On January 14, he promised that in "a couple days" he would give information on the matter. Three months have now passed and nothing.
Osorio also offered to invite journalists, media representatives, academics and lawmakers to "show the methodology" about numbers of violence in order to generate certainty, but the very next day following the announcement, Sánchez himself declared it closed for those who wanted to participate.
Is it credible, then, the decline in violence as the Peña government says? No ...
Notes
The 4,451 people killed during this administration are not "Peña's dead," responded Secretary Osorio Chong, because "they are not deaths that apply to a person". Nobody says that Peña is guilty of having them killed (just as Calderón is not personally guilty for the about the 100,000 who died during his bloody administration), but his responsibility is indisputable as the highest authority of the country: none less than the head of State. ... Spanish original
*Álvaro Delgado (1966-) is a journalist and writer. Born in Jalisco, he studied journalism at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He is a regular contributor to a number of national daily newspapers, including El Nacional, El Universal and El Financiero, and to the weekly Proceso. He is author of "El Yunque: La ultraderecha en el poder”, an investigative study of an ultra-right wing power group, for which he both won the 2003 National Prize in Journalism and became the target of numerous death threats. Álvaro Delgado can be reached at
Comments: delgado@proceso.com.mx and Twitter: @ alvaro_delgado