Slaughter of Nine Americans Adds to Security Troubles Under AMLO

(Bloomberg) -- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s soft touch on dealing with drug gangs that run wild in large swathes of the country is failing in a very public way.

Just 18 days after the Sinaloa cartel terrorized Culiacan to win the release of kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s son, a separate group killed nine dual U.S.-Mexican citizens -- including six children -- by opening fire on a convoy 60 miles from the Arizona border. The remote area has been contested ground for cartels, and members of the religious community to which the victims belong had clashed with the narcos.

”They were ambushed by the Mexican cartels; shot, burned, and murdered in cold blood,” said Kendra Lee Miller, a relative, in a Facebook post. “These were innocent civilians, American citizens simply trying to live peaceful lives.”

The brazen moves threaten to erode Lopez Obrador’s still-high approval rating and fray relations with the U.S. AMLO, as the 65-year-old Mexican leader is universally known, has already sought to curry favor with his northern neighbor: He redeployed security forces to stop migrants at the behest of President Donald Trump, possibly exposing Mexicans to harm. AMLO has said that he won’t declare war on cartels as former president Felipe Calderon did, but he must convince regular Mexicans that he can guarantee safety and restrain the drug cartels.

Homicides are on track to reach a record again despite AMLO’s promise to end the killings that have engulfed Mexico for more than a decade. From January through September, 25,890 people have been murdered. While AMLO has created a national guard to protect citizens, he has said programs to fight poverty and nurture youth are the only long-term solutions for a problem that has bedeviled the nation for generations.

“The events of recent weeks have had an impact on AMLO’s image, because they’ve shown weakness to many members of the Mexican electorate in the political center and middle class,” said Gerardo Rodriguez Sanchez Lara, a professor of national security at the University of the Americas in Puebla, Mexico. “Security continues to be the top priority for Mexicans. This has definitely hit Lopez Obrador.”

The area where Monday’s massacre occurred is a desert battleground where criminals fight for control and residents have little protection. The municipality where the attack occurred had only two police officers, according to 2017 data. And after Trump complained about Mexico allowing passage into the U.S. to Central American migrants, much of AMLO’s newly created national guard was diverted to immigration operations in southern Mexico. And recently the force was even used to keep Uber drivers away from airports.

The Mexican state’s struggle with the cartels is Sisyphean, and AMLO is far from the first president to be sullied by the fight. After Guzman was extradited to the U.S. in 2017 and sentenced to life in prison, cartels have reorganized, morphed and continued to push drugs into the U.S. while stocking up on weaponry more powerful than that of the military and police.

The victims of Monday’s attack, members of the extended LeBaron family, were descendants of a Mormon splinter group that fled the U.S. to avoid a ban on polygamy and started settling in Mexico in the late 19th century. They own land in Chihuahua, a base from which they have publicly denounced organized crime in northern Mexico and even floated the idea of creating their own defense group to counter criminals.

Three women and 14 children were traveling from Sonora back to neighboring Chihuahua when their cars were ambushed in at least two separate attacks. The dead include 8-month-old twins. Six children survived after spending hours alone in the desert.

The attacks, which left more than 200 bullet shells commonly used by M15 and M16 automatic rifles, took place between 9:40 a.m. and 11 a.m. local time and the gunmen may have let some children escape after seeing them flee the vehicles. A Red Cross ambulance took some victims to the border to be cared for in the U.S. just past midnight, Homero Mendoza Ruiz, a senior defense official, said Wednesday.

A video posted on Twitter by a member of the LeBaron family showed a charred, smoking vehicle in the middle of the road. Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who visited the scene Tuesday, said the FBI may get involved if Mexico’s attorney general sees fit.

“The FBI continues to engage with our U.S. government and Mexican law enforcement partners,” the agency said in a statement Wednesday. “We have offered assistance and stand ready to assist in the wake of this tragedy.”

There had been reports of rival gangs fighting in the area and the Suburban and Tahoe SUVs in which the victims traveled may have been mistaken for those of cartel members, Mendoza said. Telecommunications equipment used to alert law enforcement agencies failed, Claudia Contreras, Sonora state’s attorney general, said Wednesday in an interview with W radio.

More than 4,000 national guardsmen and 2,700 soldiers are in Chihuahua and Sonora states, Mendoza said.

On Wednesday, AMLO said little about how or whether his strategy for bringing security in the long run might change.

“It hurts very much that children get murdered,” he said in a news conference. “It’s very painful; terrible. I wouldn’t say there are authorities that don’t want to help. We are all cooperating.”

Security is not the only thing challenging AMLO’s presidency 11 months into a six-year term. The economy has flatlined, with investment stalling as companies and foreign investors try to decipher his policies.

There is no organized opposition to AMLO after he thrashed the traditional PRI and PAN parties in the 2018 election but he’ll need to convince businesses and citizens alike that he’s able to guarantee stability and prosperity.

AMLO is so sure of his popularity that he pushed to introduce a recall referendum three years into his term in case voters want to remove him from office early. If the security situation worsens and the economy fails to pick up, he may regret that decision.

--With assistance from Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Chris Strohm, Jonathan Levin and Eric Martin.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lorena Rios in Mexico City at lriost@bloomberg.net;Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City at cbarrerad@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Cancel at dcancel@bloomberg.net, Stephen Merelman, Paula Dwyer

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