Someone will be happy if Guanajuato turns awful

Gto News runs this opinion by Pablo Cesar Carrillo for La Silla Rota as we consider it to be of great interest given the information presented by the

Gto News runs this opinion by Pablo Cesar Carrillo for La Silla Rota as we consider it to be of great interest given the information presented by the Leones journalist. All credits to Pablo Cesar Carrillo and La Silla Rota

If we check this year’s numbers, Guanajuato is in the seventh post in murders in Mexico. That is, there are six other States that have a higher murder index than Guanajuato. They are: Baja California, Colima, Zacatecas, Chihuahua, Sonora and Morelos. And none of them has been exhibited as a violent State in the early morning press conference by the President of Mexico.

The Federal Government insists in promoting Guanajuato as the number one State in violence and murders, but that is not true. The reality is that Guanajuato has never been the first as reported by the International Murders Index per 100 thousand inhabitants. Not even in the worst moments, has Guanajuato been the State with the highest index of homicides which is a serious and correct indicator to measure security. In the worst moments, Guanajuato was Number 3, behind Colima and Chihuahua. But Mexico’s President insists in saying that Guanajuato is the most violent, showing numbers of a bad weekend or of a black month, his intention is to focus the violence of Mexico in one State governed by PAN, an opposing political party and distract the attention from the rest of the country.

The truth is that Tijuana is worst. Colima is burning. Zacatecas has serious problems. Chihuahua has a high homicide index. Sonora is hot, And Morelos has problems since 30 years ago.

There is not even a point of comparison. Guanajuato has been a secure island, in the middle of a country subdued by drug traffickers in 35% of the Mexican territory.

Even when it is not good either to just close your eyes and say that everything is fine. It is true that Guanajuato was the State with the highest number of absolute homicides in 2020 (It has a population six times bigger than that of Colima and almost double that of Chihuahua) and it faces the most difficult moment in security in the last years. There is a lot to work on.

But the last polls presented by the President in the morning conference, a few days ago, clearly showed numbers from 2018 to 2021: those numbers combined put Guanajuato in the post Number 4 of wilful homicides, with a national media rate of 87 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants (while the national media is of 29 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants). Although in the same graphic shown, Guanajuato is in the post 30th in kidnapping, 21st in car theft, 31st in human trafficking, 31st in transport units theft, 30th in feminicide and 11th in robbery at homes.

The idea here is that if you check only 2021, Guanajuato is no longer in fourth place, but in seventh, since this year the rate of homicides has gone down after the capture of “El Marro”. This year, from December to July 1, 949 homicides were registered in Guanajuato, while last year in the same period, 2,235 homicides were reported. The most difficult year for Guanajuato was 2020, the year El Marro was captured.

The challenge now is to maintain this homicide rate down.