The mayor of a Mexican city plagued by drug violence has been murdered less than a week after taking office.

Alejandro Arcos was found dead on Sunday in Chilpancingo, a city of around 280,000 people in the southwestern state of Guerrero. He had been mayor for six days.

Evelyn Salgado, the state governor, said the city was in mourning over a murder that “fills us with indignation”. His death came three days after the city government’s new secretary, Francisco Tapia, was shot dead.

Authorities have not released details of the investigation, or suspects. However, Guerrero is one of the worst-affected states for drug violence and drug cartels have murdered dozens of politicians across the country.

  • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “Come vacation in Mexico! If you don’t leave your hotel, you’ll be perfectly safe!”

    • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I know this is satire, though it was my understanding that tourists were protected. Like, don’t walk down any dark alleys and listen when someone strongly tells you to go somewhere else, otherwise you’re reasonably safe. This was a couple years ago though, and I may be remembering things wholly wrong.

      I question those years, man.

      • lanolinoil@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I go to CDMX all the time. You stay in the whitey neighborhoods it is one of the best cities on earth. I’ve never felt in danger even like I have in Tulum or Cancun on occasion (and usually by police)

      • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        and for that reason alone tourists have gone missing.

        the cartel cares about its bottom line, funneling wealth away from American pockets to grow the cartel in order to…you guessed it, funnel more money out of American pockets.

        why? three reasons. money for power, power for control.

        the cartels wouldn’t even be a thing if it weren’t for Regan. I hope that fucking bigot rots eternal horrors for the truly depraved bullshit he unleashed on the world.

        • Osito@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          All tourists don’t stay in the resort towns and often go out looking for an authentic experience

          I’ve never personally had an issue in Baja or cancun , but I stay pretty much near the resorts

    • rsuri@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      However, Guerrero is one of the worst-affected states for drug violence

      This is the same mistake people make in the US when talking about “unsafe cities” ignoring that crime is concentrated in certain parts. The same rule applies everywhere in the world: there’s safe and unsafe spots. So no, you’re not gonna get kidnapped from a Cancun resort anytime soon.

      • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        A duck duck go search of “Cancun” and “kidnapping” would argue against this.

        I made a joke about optics, and people get offended.

        • rsuri@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Search for “airplane” and “explosion”, I’m sure that doesn’t look good either. Seek and you shall find. Cancun had 10 million visitors last year, I’m sure everything happened to everyone at some point. But kidnappings are winning the bad luck Powerball.

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    one thing i’ve been curious about is how receptive the mexican government/people would be to US aid military, or military financial aid for stopping the whole cartel problem.

    It would likely be beneficial to the both of us, and canada as well though less so.

    • LemmyFeed@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I didn’t think the US has much interest in stopping the cartels, the war on drugs is much too profitable and the cartels provide most of the drugs.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The US and Mexico have cooperated militarily on the issue before. The problem is that the roots are much deeper than a military problem, so no amount of US assistance can shoot the cartels into no longer being a problem for any more than a few metaphorical moments. As long as the fundamental causes of the Cartels’ power remain unaddressed by the Mexican government, US assistance isn’t going to be much help.

    • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The root problem is that there is a huge self capturing black market demand for drugs, which itself is a problem rooted in capitalist countries throughout the americas prioritizing GDP expansion over human wellbeing.

      It’s the result of failing healthcare systems, the evaporation of 3rd places, the requirement of a car to survive, the failing housing system, the lack of job security and mobility, etc

      No amount of military intervention can change that. Even if you somehow successfully destroyed every cartel with a button press, they’d all be replaced overnight because of the huge demand for drugs.

      What can actually effect the demand is:

      • food, water, housing, education and healthcare being well funded human rights

      • mixed used development/relaxation of zoning laws

      • transportation infrastructure that allows people to actually have a choice in how they get places

      • unions, workplace democracy, worker protections

      You get the picture. Life actually has to be worth living.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        What can actually effect the demand is:

        if we’re going to argue market forces here, just legalize drugs and tax them.

        It’s that simple.

        But regardless, getting rid of the mexican cartel specifically would be beneficial for many, many other reasons. Notably political instability.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The only way to eliminate drugs is to switch to the digital peso…

    Let’s ignore the fact that Mexico is poor. They got technology. Guns are illegal in Mexico and they got guns, I rest my case.

    Imagine a card that you could get at any bank which holds a physical record of your money. A backup would be kept as a record at all banks. There’s no Bitcoin shit happening, it’s just a credit card subsidized and maintained by the government. If you make money, it goes into it, if you spend money it goes out. Pretty simple. Eliminate the peso coins and physical money, it that will eliminate the cartels. The government would know who hasn’t paid taxes, and they would take taxes automatically. The cards can never go negative so you won’t have a US-like credit issue, you’ll just run out of money.

    Out in the wild, there’s internet via musk web satellites.

    If the government has all the accounts, they can just rank them by size and location and investigate anyone quickly who might be getting paid illegally. Then the only way to get drug money would be thru money laundering. So that’s where investigators would quickly figure out who’s got money to buy a house and who just bought 10 houses without any money.

    It could be interesting.