In 2019 Guanajuato registered 3,540 intentional homicides, up from 3,290 in 2018 and 1,423 in 2017, according to the latest figures from Mexico’s national public security executive secretariat (SESNSP). And yet this is not a state renowned for the drug trafficking or turf wars that haunt the likes of Baja California (BC) and Guerrero, which registered 2,859 and 1,875 intentional homicides in 2019.
Unlike Guerrero, and some other violence-ridden states that have been overrun by criminal organisations in recent years, Guanajuato is prosperous. In fact, the industrialised state boasted the highest average GDP growth among Mexican states (of 4% annually) in the last decade according to official data. This sea change in Guanajuato’s fortunes has been sudden and devastating.
On 27 January, during his daily press briefing, President López Obrador was asked by journalists about the causes and solutions for the violence in Guanajuato. This followed a particularly bloody weekend during which 48 people were killed in the state.
López Obrador attributed the violence to the struggle for control of the state between the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organisation (DTO), and the Cártel Santa Rosa de Lima local criminal group, a rising challenger that got rich through organised oil theft known in Mexico as ‘huachicoleo’. This lucrative industry, fuelled primarily by the country’s second biggest oil refinery located in Salamanca in southern Guanajuato, has laid the path for a barbaric turf war.
Fighting huachicoleo has been one of the priorities of the López Obrador administration and the president claims that his government has reduced fuel theft from 80,000 barrels a day to 4,000. However, local press reports suggest that the deployment of federal security forces to tackle huachicoleo can contribute to the violence, and that there is a lack of transparency or accountability surrounding their actions. There is also a lack of cohesion between the different security forces.
López Obrador stressed that his government is giving “special attention” to Guanajuato by increasing the presence of the national guard (GN) and the army there, in addition to the work already being done by the navy. But on 15 January Rodríguez, a member of the national right-wing opposition Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), told the local press that the efforts of the GN had been almost entirely ineffective as they spend most of their time indoors. “There’s no point having operations bases when the personnel are tucked away, we need them out there on the streets, carrying out operations, we need them out 24 hours a day, not in their quarters,” the governor said.
Rodríguez’s words followed López Obrador’s assertion in December 2019 that he is the state governor with the poorest attendance record at the daily security meetings hosted by López Obrador that include state and military officials. Federal government officials have also complained that there is little cooperation between the state security forces with their federal authorities when it comes to security operations.
The political row aside, the violence in Guanajuato poses a singular problem for the Mexican government, as it shows that organised criminal groups can thrive even in areas where the local population enjoys relative prosperity and economic opportunities, the lack of which López Obrador often claims has helped to fuel organised crime around the country. The violent situation in Guanajuato, if unresolved, could also start to drive away some of the foreign companies that are present in the state, which include some of the major car manufacturers.
Historically high levels of violence
According to some local analysts, the current levels of violence in Guanajuato have not been observed since the Guerra Cristera (1929-1932). This was a civilian conflict sparked by the imposition of secularist and anti-clerical articles in the national constitution by the government led by Plutarco Elías Calles (1924-1928) that produced an uprising by Catholics in central Mexico that was confronted by the Mexican army. An estimated 250,000 people were killed during the conflict, with Guanajuato being one of the main focal points.
Corruption
The former head of the state-run oil company Pemex under the administration led by Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), Emilio Lozoya, has been barred from public office for 10 years. Lozoya, accused of inaccurate asset disclosure, is also under investigation for accepting bribes from the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht.
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