Guatemala cardinal: Drug cartels wield 'total power' on border with Mexico

Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, has warned that drug cartels control the border between Mexico and Guatemala, provoking spasms of violence which have sent hundreds of Mexicans fleeing into his diocese.

Speaking to reporters in Panama after the 10th Meeting of Bishops and Migration Pastoral Agents of North America, Central America and the Caribbean, Cardinal Ramazzini questioned the inaction of the Mexican government as rival drug cartels dispute territories in southern Chiapas state.

"We're in an area where drug cartels have total control," the cardinal said Aug. 22. "What I truly cannot understand is what the Mexican government has failed to do, to have reached this point of losing total control of the border."

His comments followed an Aug. 21 joint statement from the dioceses of Huehuetenango and San Marcos, Guatemala, and San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, which described seven communities in Chiapas, "being turned into a battlefield by the territorial dispute between criminal groups, which force the (local) men to go to the front, to staff checkpoints, to close roads. They and their families confront a terror that they never imagined."

The statement continued, "They are put as human shields for the sake of a system of death that no level of government has wanted to listen to or address at its roots."

The statement was signed by Cardinal Ramazzini; Bishop Bernabé Sagastume of San Marcos; and Bishop Rodrigo Aguiar Martínez of San Cristóbal de las Casas. Bishop José Guadalupe Torres Campos of Ciudad Juárez, director of the Mexican bishops' human mobility ministry, also signed the document.

Bishop Martínez read the letter again on Aug. 25 and announced that Caritas would organize a collection of household items for persons displaced in the Chiapas state capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, where he is apostolic administrator.

The prelates' call for peace and government action comes as communities continue to empty communities along the Guatemala-Mexico border amid conflict between the Sinaloa cartel and Jalisco New Generation cartel.

Violence ahead of the June 2 presidential election killed five candidates and forced at least another 200 more to abandon their candidacies, according to Mexican media reports.

The Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas warned at the time that there were not the conditions to hold elections in parts of Chiapas. The diocese repeated that statement on Aug. 24, the day before a special election was held in the municipality of Chicomuselo, where fighting has been especially intense.

"This situation forces (residents) to vote according to the interests of the cartels that are fighting over the territory and have caused the forced displacement of the inhabitants," the statement said. "Due to this exodus of the population, it means that the election would not be representative of the inhabitants of the municipality."

Catholic sources have told OSV News of people fleeing forced recruitment by drug cartels. At least 500 of the displaced have fled to Guatemala. Mexico's foreign ministry said it was providing consular assistance to the displaced Mexicans in Guatemala.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has promoted a nonconfrontational security policy of "hugs, not bullets," has repeatedly insisted the region would be "very soon ... pacified."

Catholic priests in Chiapas have wondered aloud why the president hasn't acted more forcefully.

"We ask ourselves: What has to happen for the government to accept that there is insecurity, and fulfill its duty to provide security?" Father Heyman Vázquez Medina said during an Aug. 17 peace march in Suchiate, a town on the Guatemala border.

"We agree with the policy of 'hugs, not bullets,' when citizens are respected," Father Vázquez continued, according to the newspaper El Universal. "But when there are deaths, kidnappings, extortion and cartel clashes where people's lives are put in danger, the government has to act to ensure society's safety."