12 Violent Deaths Recorded in Morelos in Just 36 Hours
A Dentistry student was shot to death inside his car in the municipality of Jiutepec. An elderly couple was shot and killed in the El Mirador housing development in Oaxtepec.
The dismembered remains of a man and a woman were found in Teozoyuca. The bodies of two people wrapped in blankets were found in the indigenous community of Tetelpa, in Zacatepec.
A man was shot to death by unidentified individuals in the Ejido de Acapantzingo, who stole a vehicle in which he was transporting a horse. Another man was killed outside a middle school in the Carolina neighborhood of Cuernavaca.
Three additional attacks occurred in the metropolitan area of the state capital.
12 violent deaths in Morelos in just 36 hours.
Just last weekend, a video circulated in which alleged hitmen from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel threatened merchants in Cuautla.
“Contact us if you are approached, or I have orders that if you do not fall in line with us, we will go to your damn business and whoever is there, we will shoot…”
In that municipality, there are numerous reports of workers being forced to sell drugs for the cartels. The punishment for those who refuse is visible to everyone: bodies found lying in streets and fields in the morning, sometimes accompanied by violent narco-messages.
Although the state reports a 17% decrease in homicides compared with last year, in most municipalities in Morelos, violence and extortion have returned to the levels at which former Governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco left them: a consequence of organized crime infiltrating politics.
Security reports have documented criminal connections and ties involving mayors and politicians from all political parties.
From the Green Ecologist Party in Emiliano Zapata, Zacatepec, Tlaltizapán, Jonacatepec, and Temoac.
From Morena in Totolapan, Ocuituco, and Tetecala. From the PRI in Jiutepec and Xochitepec.
From the PAN, the most prominent example came last May with the arrest of Cuautla municipal president Jesús Corona Damián, accused of having ties to organized crime and committing acts of extortion. He remained a fugitive for ten days until he was located in Acapulco carrying a firearm.
The arrests of the mayors of Atlatlahucan, Agustín Toledano, and Irving Sánchez, of Yecapixtla, did not resolve Morelos’ problems, according to experts consulted. Instead, they resulted in realignments and intensified conflicts between the criminal organizations fighting for control of the state:
La Familia Michoacana against Los Mayas or Los de Siempre in the central region. The Pacific Cartel or Pueblos Unidos against Unión Tepito and the Cuautla Cartel in eastern Morelos, and conflicts between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and La Familia Michoacana in the southern and southwestern parts of the state.
The Pacific group, led by Júpiter Araujo, known as El Barbas, remains the dominant force in Morelos. Its presence has been detected, in alliance with local gangs, in at least 11 municipalities.
Added to this constellation of uncontrollable violence are Los Linos, with a confirmed presence in Cuernavaca, Yautepec, Tlaltizapán, and Jiutepec; the Tlahuica Command, which operates toward Huitzilac; Unión Tepito, which is currently in conflict with El Barbas’ group; and remnants of Los Rojos, the Southern Cartel, and Guerreros Unidos, or the Nueva Empresa.
The official decline in homicides contrasts with one of the highest perceptions of insecurity, as well as acts of violence that occur constantly at the local level.
The population, business sectors, and productive sectors report the continued presence of high-impact crimes such as extortion and property dispossession, among others.
Morelos is among the seven states with the highest number of these crimes. The last 36 hours are an example of the brutal deterioration in security conditions in the state, as the government of Morena Governor Margarita González Saravia prepares to reach its second year in office.
Source: eluniversal
