Mexico City, Sept 25 (EFE).- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador acknowledged Monday that there are disputes between drug trafficking groups on the country’s southern border. Also, he criticized the “right wing” for spreading “propaganda” about the conflict.
“There are organized crime groups allegedly disputing the territory to have spaces to store drugs that enter Central America, to have control of that territory, and they confront each other. Fortunately, there have not been many murders in Chiapas in general,” he said in his daily press conference.
The president was reacting to a video that went viral on Friday in which residents of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, gathered on the Pan-American Highway to applaud a group identified with the Sinaloa Cartel for freeing roads in the municipality of Frontera Comalapa that the criminal group had blocked.
Lopez Obrador accepted the veracity of the images, but criticized criminal groups and his political opponents for the “propaganda,” which he predicted would increase in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
“There has been a lot of propaganda, so they released a video where 20 trucks are entering Frontera Comalapa, and there are people on both sides of the road welcoming them,” he said.
“And yes, they could be support bases that exist in some parts of the country because they give them supplies, out of fear or they threaten them, but it is not a general issue; it is a minimal issue to a region, and it is already being attended, the National Guard is already there,” he said.
The controversy occurs while organized crime violence is worsening in Chiapas, where people have warned this year of a “civil war” due to the criminal groups that have murdered, disappeared, and displaced the inhabitants, particularly the indigenous.
The governor even admitted that some areas have been left without electricity because criminal groups prevented the passage of workers of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
But he insisted that his Government is attending to the facts with a reinforcement of National Guard elements so that, according to him, the recent criticisms are politically motivated.
“It is a phenomenon because it is about how a news item spreads, and above all, it is reproduced by those who are against the transformation, the conservatives,” he added. EFE
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