Gunmen Kill 11 at Football Match in Mexico

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Paul Ross for Talk Radio. 

Transcript

Paul Ross 0:00

And now authorities in Mexico are investigating an attack that killed eleven people and injured twelve others during a post-match gathering in central Mexico. It was an appalling sounding attack. It happened in a principality, a province effectively, like a county, right next door to one more World Cup games are scheduled and involved a cartel. It's believed that Donald Trump has now declared a terrorist organization. To get more on this story, which is still breaking and being investigated, delighted to welcome back to the show. I just wish it was uh for a happier story, though. Jon Bonfiglio, based in Mexico and in Latin America. Good morning, Jon. This sounds like an absolutely appalling act of violence. What, if anything, do we know about what might have laid behind this?

Jon Bonfiglio 0:37

So, uh hey, Paul, um, good evening, good morning. Um so this took place, uh where it took place, I think, is kind of important. It took place in north-central Mexico in the city of uh Salamanca, as you say, in which families and players were having a drink and food after the match when a number of vehicles pulled up and started shooting indiscriminately, with uh eleven killed and another dozen injured. But Salamanca is at the centre of a turf war between the internationally powerful transnational criminal organization that is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel that you just referred to just uh a minute ago that has been declared a foreign terrorist organization by the USA. And then, interestingly, the much smaller local criminal group called the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel has been trying to wipe it out for quite a while now, but uh the Santa Rosa de Lima is resisting. Interestingly, they're not largely fighting over drug transit routes, but much more over the illegal and highly lucrative tapping of fuel pipelines for uh for resale. This area of Mexico has a number of oil facilities and infrastructure, and just the day before the shooting there was an attack on an oil depot in the in the city. There's no suggestion that those shot uh were involved in these activities, but it is um sadly, tragically, fairly regular for gunmen linked to cartels to target local gatherings within territories under the control of other groups. Football matches is rare, but targeted shootings at the likes of busy bars and birthday parties are all too familiar.

Paul Ross 2:03

When you say targeted shooting, this sounds fairly indiscriminate. You mean simply they're going to attack somewhere to send some kind of message then? Because very difficult to target eleven people out of the thought.

Jon Bonfiglio 2:13

Yeah, they're not targeting a specific individual. They're basically saying by killing indiscriminately, they're saying we are here too, we have uh we have the power to do this, and they're sending a uh a message. I mean, look, the incident is horrific enough in its own right, but it's gathered particular attention, international attention for two reasons. The first is, as you say, uh uh absolutely that uh we're not far away from the World Cup, in which Mexico, of course, is one of the host nations, and there's just this kind of synchronicity of the fact that the killings occurred at an actual football match. And then the second is that the state of Guanajuato, where the killings took place, borders the state of Jalisco, which not only is one of Mexico's most violent, but also counts as its capital, the city of Guadalajara, one of three host cities in Mexico which will host games uh with the likes of South Korea, Colombia, Uruguay, Spain, and of course uh Mexico.

Paul Ross 3:00

And catching in the municipality that shares its name or where this cartel has taken its name from, Jalisco then, is the same as the name of the cartel.

Jon Bonfiglio 3:08

Yeah, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel actually is a pretty new cartel. It only emerged about sort of 10, 15 years ago. And at the time it was a hyper local cartel, but now it is uh little doubt that it is Mexico's most powerful cartel. It has uh national uh reach, and I would say even international reach. I would actually put it as being the most powerful criminal organization on earth at the moment.

Paul Ross 3:32

I've got no wish to try and sensationalise this story, but it must surely throw up questions about security for those people visiting Mexico for the World Cup.

Jon Bonfiglio 3:41

Yeah, and you've got to multiply that as well by the fact that Mexico currently, and President Claudia Sheinbaum also is continually under threat of potential incursions from the US military. Um it was very notable at her press conference on Monday that she was not enthusiastic to speak about the issue at all. You had this really strange sort of um uh contrast in which she actually spoke more about uh efforts and programs that were being led by Mexico uh in the drive to get people, young people, especially playing soccer around the country and promoting soccer events, than she took speaking about the event itself. She sort of palmed it off and said that the state authorities were dealing with it, and then when the reporter repeated the question, she just snapped him off.

Paul Ross 4:20

Does that mean she's effectively sticking ahead in the sand?

Jon Bonfiglio 4:23

Yeah, I think she's um I mean, I guess a couple of things. One is yes, she definitely doesn't want to be speaking about it because then that's gonna be amplified uh across international news media, and she is definitely worried that when if these things reach the ear of Donald Trump in the USA, that this is gonna generate uh new problems as well. As regards the actual specifics of does it generate worry for the World Cup itself? It doesn't, but not for the reasons you would think. It doesn't, not because the violence doesn't exist or the cartels don't have significant wide-ranging strength, but because clearly there are channels of communication between the Mexican government and these cartels, and when w as we approach uh the big event, there are going to be uh sort of uh local accords between the government and the organized uh and organized crime, which is gonna basically sort of uh uh make them as a no-go area for for violence during the tournament.

Paul Ross 5:16

Uh it's very easy probably for me to say this from the standpoint of living in a parliamentary democracy, which by and large, apart from dreadful troubles in in Northern Ireland, hasn't really known violence of this way on its streets. But it does sound then as if there's a degree of let me think of the right word, symbiosis between the government and the cartels.

Jon Bonfiglio 5:34

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think you um, you know, without uh sort of drawing a specific line between them, if you look back at I mentioned uh a couple of minutes ago about when this cartel, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, emerged about 10-15 years ago, prior to that it didn't exist, and the current ruling party, Morena, uh, about 10-15 years ago didn't exist either. Um, I think you can draw your own lines between the emergence of these of those two sort of power structures and how arguably they uh have supported each other to achieve uh national preeminence.

Paul Ross 6:08

So this in any way mirror, and again I'm going to choose my words carefully, the link that some people believe there was between the provisional RA and Sinn Fein.

Jon Bonfiglio 6:18

I I wouldn't um draw the link that specifically between them. They're clearly different entities, and the Mexican government is not a political mouthpiece for that group. It just to some extent you could argue that certainly President Claudia Sheinbaum that she has no choice but to deal with these daily realities. So, how do you do that? It's been um the sort of the the the the military pushback has been discredited over the course of the last 20 years and just led to to more deaths. So there has to be some kind of in engagement there. But um there is little doubt that there are members, individuals within her party, that have uh long uh unillustrious histories of uh not just negotiating but uh arguably overlapping with some of these criminal structures.

Paul Ross 7:02

So, really between the lines of what you're saying, John, finally it seems that maybe there's the prospect, or or maybe the certainty, but certainly the prospect of some kind of almost ceasefire from the cartels while this is on, because they all have had whatever degree of communication between them, law enforcement in Mexico and the government, and it's probably they would regard it as being in their own interest to avoid some kind of further clampdown, or maybe even some kind of incur incursion from the north and the states, were they to keep the violence going during the World Cup and maybe attract, you know, even kind of you know collateral damage from people who are visiting the country for the football tournament.

Jon Bonfiglio 7:38

Yeah, there is there one of the other things that the cartels and the Mexican government share is that neither have an interest in um awakening the attention of Donald Trump and and having potential incursions um emerge down from there. The other thing that we I think we need to remember is that the cartels don't just move uh drugs south to uh south to north. They are also huge, hugely powerful multinational corporations. So if um if if things happen and the economics of the World Cup are affected, then these criminal groups are also going to be affected and they're not about to allow that to happen. This skirmish in north-central Mexico between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Santa Rosa de Lima, the cartel, not to say that these skirmishes don't happen elsewhere as well, but is a very specific local conflict, hyper-violent local conflict between two groups, which is not going to replicate itself uh across Guadalajara, across Monterrey, and uh even less across Mexico City.

Paul Ross 8:32

I said finally, let me squeeze in one more quick question to you then. Um Has this attracted the degree of attention in Mexico that it has over here? This isn't I mean, this seems an extreme incident, this one, am I right?

Jon Bonfiglio 8:44

I'd like to say it's an outlier. Um it it sadly isn't. I mean, perhaps the fact that women and children were involved made it made you know take a little bit more of the media attention, but if it's incidents such as these, I said right that at the top of the piece that actually um tragically the it's it is a kind of a modus operandi, this targeting of um of groups of individuals that have their minds on something else. It's almost it's it's a statement that is made, especially around sort of young, vulnerable people at parties and uh and the like. And and it's sort of, yeah, it is one of those statements that says, We can take we can take um your people whenever we want, wherever we want, and it is um it is an ongoing strategy. So yeah, I wish I could say that it's it's an outlier event, it's a rare event, but uh yeah, sadly, uh Mexico has been living with this level of violence since the war on drugs was uh was declared by then President George W. Bush in two thousand and six.

Paul Ross 9:42

Appreciate your time this morning, Jon. Jon Bonfiglio there live from Mexico talking to me, Paul Ross and you guys on Talk Sport and on Talk Radio this morning. We're live till five.