Guatemala looks with suspicion at the border shared with Mexico. The authorities of the Central American country have alerted the Mexican Foreign Ministry about the growing presence of members of the CJNG in their territory. The criminal group has become strong in the region of Frontera Comalapa and Motozintla, municipalities united by a road that the cartel blocks and unblocks at will with its own checkpoints. The population flees from that area, displaced by violence and unprotected due to the absence of a significant presence of the State and the fear of being killed or recruited by force by organized crime.
Specifically, in recent weeks the CJNG placed a checkpoint on the border between Motozintla, on the Mexican side, and Cantón Cheguate, on the Guatemalan side. According to Milenio, the criminals were heavily armed and protected with bulletproof vests. According to the same medium, the same members of the cartel starred in the first confrontation against the armed forces of Guatemala in the second week of January. A command crossed into the territory of the Central American country and exchanged fire with a military unit, which counterattacked and managed to capture two of them. Both confessed to being Chiapanecos and members of the CJNG. The police also located two safe houses.
Guatemala has deployed 2,000 soldiers in Cantón Cheguate. The strategy is part of an operation that has been underway for months to reinforce the shared border in the face of the lawlessness and violence that reign in Chiapas. Last September, the authorities of the Central American country already announced that more than 300 soldiers had moved to the department of San Marcos, bordering precisely with Motozintla, Amatenango de la Frontera and Mazapa de Madero. In December, 10 Guatemalan chicken vendors disappeared in Frontera Comalapa. Nothing more was heard from them.
The violent events do not give Chiapas a truce, which deals daily with the consequences of the infiltration of organized crime without more counterweights from the Government than a rising militarization that, however, does not manage – or does not try, according to the complaints of many organizations that work on the ground – to tackle the problem. The population displaced by violence is counted in thousands of people, the massacres have become part of the daily vocabulary and, in general, in the region there is a feeling of abandonment and the sensation that the only law that governs the territory is that of the narco.
Even the Church has raised its voice. This is how the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas summarizes it in a statement published this Thursday: “We join our cry to manifest all the outrages and injustices that our peoples and communities live, especially the insecurity, violence and territorial dispute caused by organized crime, before which the authorities of the three levels of Government are overwhelmed, permissive or colluded by the system of control that this exercises in the national territory (…) The above brings very strong consequences for our municipalities and our peoples such as: violence and confrontation generated between armed groups and drug trafficking, which cause kidnappings, disappearances, forced displacements of people and entire families, as well as the loss of their heritage that they have achieved with so much effort (…) And because of the fear of reprisals, impunity and the non-exercise of the rule of law, people do not want to report. It also causes the struggle of powers of organizations, manipulated by political parties, caciquism and business”.
Source: El Pais
