It looked like an action movie: burning vehicles, roadblocks, murders, burning businesses, a prison fight, and terrified people on the run, but it was reality: a wave of violence swept through four states of Mexico last week and, with it, organized crime tries to generate terror.

Jalisco, Guanajuato, Chihuahua and Baja California, the last two borders with the United States, they were flogged on consecutive days Between Tuesday and last Friday, with Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua), with attacks on civilians, and Tijuana (Baja California), with dozens of cars set on fire, are the cities most affected.

“Those states have suffered very violent days and the modus operandi is: public transport units and vehicles set on fire, this carried out by armed men and at strategic points at the same time and what this leaves us is that there is already a question of narco -terrorism, “public safety specialist Eunice Rendón told Efe on Monday.

“They want to terrorize the citizensbecause although the murders of the past also generated fear, they weren’t necessarily aimed at generating that feeling, at least not like now, ”he added.

In most fireswitnesses indicated that the drivers were stripped of their vehicles by armed and threatened persons.

“‘Get off or get off’ they said as they pointed the gun at me, they didn’t give me ‘chance’ to grab anything and when I got off it was already catching fire. Two companions arrived and one loaned me a fire extinguisher, the two people are get in the car and drive away, I was scared because I didn’t know what was going on, “a driver of a Tijuana public transportation unit told Efe.

Ciudad Juarez, key point

Rendón recalled that in Ciudad Juárez violence erupted after a clash between gangs in a prison that resulted in two deaths, and led to the burning of companies and the murder of the civilian population, including a child, two women, six men, including four workers from a local radio station.

“This direct attack on civilians is worrying because it was no longer a stray bullet, as we have seen on other occasions, but we could speak of narco-terrorism,” he said.

said this it is the result of the fragmentation of several cartels in Chihuahua and its fight with the Sinaloa cartel.

For Rendón, who was part of the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, this wave of violence “Yes, try to generate terror in the population” and it shows that the Mexican government must strengthen its security strategy.

The violence began Tuesday night in the municipality of Zapopan, Jalisco, where the Mexican military disabled a meeting of leaders of the Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) cartel, which to avoid their arrest they collided with soldiers and burned vehicles to block the streets.

The attacks spread to the municipalities of Irapuato, Silao, Celaya, San Francisco del Rincón and León, in the neighboring state of Guanajuato, where criminals set fire to shops and gas stations.

The wave arrived in Ciudad Juárez on Thursday and on Friday it spread to the state of Baja California, where authorities on Saturday blamed the CJNG for the events of the violent day, which left a total of 28 vehicles on fire in 5 of the 6 municipalities of the state and 17 alleged criminals were arrested.

“All of this happened at a particular moment, when President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that the National Guard would certainly join the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) in an already official security militarization,” said Rendón, an expert on prevention. crime.

Border

But on Monday, President López Obrador questioned that media and analysts use the word terrorism and said that there were 196 homicides nationwide from Friday to Sundayone of the weekends “with fewer homicides, even if it seems unbelievable”.

Tell the Mexican people to be calm, there is governability, there is stability and at the same time there is the interest of our opponents, the conservatives, to blow things up. To do tabloid and sensationalist journalism, he said.

For border security expert José María Ramos, it is no coincidence that the violent events in Tijuana took place “on a Friday evening in one of the most important cities on the border between Mexico and the United States. which has about 80,000 daily crossingsand the acts were committed on busy streets “.

He said that after the events it is appreciated that “the capacities of investigation, prevention and intelligence” that “the local state actors should have unquestionably been surpassed”.

The investigator also from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte recalled that violence is on the rise on the borders of Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana “and so far this year they will have at least about 1,800 intentional murders“, according to estimates.

He said these rates are “an important indicator” and that if they cannot be reduced, “even less is this violence, which is very circumstantial, very fast and generates great visibility.”

EFE agency

PB