Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Photo: Presidencia

By KELIN DILLON

In the midst of Mexico’s ongoing violence crisis, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) took to his daily press conference on the morning of Monday, May 29, to brag about how the nation’s notorious organized crime groups “respect” federal public servants servicing Mexico’s cartel-controlled communities.

According to AMLO, who finally acknowledged the cartels’ control of communities and thoroughfares across the nation during Monday’s conference, Mexico’s organized crime groups purportedly respect members of the Secretariat of Wellbeing servicing social programs in these regions – despite the fact that, at López Obrador’s own admission, said public servants are essentially detained in these communities due to the cartels’ control.

“There are cases where the cartels detain someone who works in these communities, but since they wear a vest displaying their role with the government, they are identified and respected,” touted AMLO at the time, though the president failed to name which communities or regions said incidents supposedly took place in.

López Obrador was likewise unsuccessful in confirming if the public servants blockaded into these communities had denounced their situations, or if the federal government had opened investigations into these incidents.

However, AMLO went on to share an anecdote surrounding a public servant helping a young boy’s grandmother in need of social services in a cartel-controlled area to bolster his claims at the conference, though the federal executive was unable to provide any additional details confirming the story’s veracity.

López Obrador also used the opportunity to share his thoughts that his administration’s social program implementation in rural communities has prevented many youths from succumbing to the path of joining local cartels; but despite his claims, the organized crime’s grip on the nation reportedly continues to expand with minimal interference from the federal government, putting AMLO’s presidency on track to be the bloodiest in Mexico’s recent history, with approximately 65,000 cartel-perpetrated homicides occurring just in the first three years of his six-year term alone.