The arrest of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been scrutinized in depth by opinion writers both north and south of the border. Here’s a selection of their musings.
With the fall of El Chapo, the Peña Nieto government sends the message that there are no untouchables. This is no longer in doubt. If (El Chapo) can fall, anyone can.
Mario Campos,
adnpolitico.com
El Chapo wasn’t hiding in a hole in the mountains, nor in a foreign country. He was in a condominium on the Mazatlan malecon and a few days earlier in a luxury zone of Culiacan. If the local politicians and police didn’t know this, they are good for nothings. And if they did know, they are good for nothings.
Carlos Puig
Society as a whole won’t be winners if there isn’t now a huge operation to dismantle the infrastructure of complicity and protection that El Chapo enjoyed. On the contrary, impunity will win out. We shouldn’t think that the detention of Guzman Loera necessarily means the weakening of his cartel, or even less the end of his criminal activities. After this arrest, we must go after the officials who allowed El Chapo to construct his empire. Not to do so would mean that his arrest was just another “show,” as we have seen in previous presidential administrations. Only the naive could imagine El Chapo Guzman built (his empire) without help from the highest echelons of power.
Eduardo González
Velázquez, La Jornada
Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam is telling us a story worthy of a soap opera in that between February 13 and 17 (authorities) located properties (in Culiacan) that El Chapo was using, some of which were connected by tunnels to the city’s drainage system, thus making his detention “difficult.” Was no one aware of this network of tunnels? Perhaps El Chapo, like the Penguin in Batman, preferred to wander around in tunnels when he was spending millions of dollars in bribes to the police, and state and municipal authorities.
Miguel Pantaleón, Proceso
It was evident that during a large part of the Calderon administration El Chapo’s cartel received less strikes than the rest. For years there has been a perception – rejected by authorities – that there were “good” cartels (Sinaloa) and “bad” cartels (the Zetas).
Jorge Zepeda Patterson,
La Opinion
In most countries, when a chief executive captures alive the most wanted criminal in the world, he/she would receive extraordinary recognition. In the case of Enrique Peña Nieto, praise rained down, but from abroad. The deserved congratulations from this country’s political and business class was minimal and, in some cases, rather mixed. Why so many doubts? Because Mexicans don’t believe in their government. As simple as that. And this lack of credibility opens the door to all kinds of speculations and doubts.
Ana Maria Salazar,
El Financiero
It appears that the federal government has changed its focus on how to deal with insecurity and violence. Now they are applying strategies based on the use of intelligence, and not so much, as during the administration of Calderon, on a frontal attack on criminal organizations at any cost to human life.
Hector Raul Solis Gadea, Milenio
Parts of Mexico are still mired in cartel-fueled chaos, but the brutality and unstaunched bloodshed that marked former Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s battle with drug gangs is subsiding.
Keegan Hamilton,
The Atlantic
Peña Nieto appears willing and able to bypass inoperative and corrupt state and municipal governments more effectively than his predecessor. This is, in part, related to his Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) disciplined approach and control over administrative and political matters.
Steven Dudley,
In Sight Crime
Guzman’s arrest is good for the rule of law and good for Mexico because it destroys the myths of the invincible drug baron, much as Escobar’s death did in Colombia. It shows that ultimately a kingpin can be put out of business. What it doesn’t do, though, is suggest that the business itself is going anywhere.
Douglas Farah,
Foreign Policy
With El Chapo, the true honcho of international trafficking, behind bars, we might, at least in the short run, see an uptick in cartel activity within the Western Hemisphere until the next kingpin with transcontinental aspirations emerges. Similarly, his arrest might encourage cartels throughout Mexico, pending their adjustment to his capture, to increase their non-narcotic activities: namely kidnapping, ransom and extortion.
Carl Meacham, CNN
This action has been splashed across front pages and on radio and television around the world and comes at an ideal moment (for the federal government), when the energy, fiscal and education reforms have resulted in a steady drop in the president’s popularity.
Gabriel Torres Espinoza, Milenio
It was the United States that supplied the insatiable demand for Mr. Guzman’s products, along with the money and the guns. Responsibility for the continuing tragedy that spawned criminals like Mr. Guzman belongs on both sides of our shared border.
The New York Times
editorial board
Keeping him in Mexico has pros and cons. For one, there is the risk of Guzman escaping or bribing his way out of prison, as he did in 1993 and in 2001. There is also the risk of Guzmán running his criminal business from jail. On the other hand, Mexico may want to show that just as they can capture a high-level criminal, they can also prosecute him and keep him in jail.
Dolia Estevez, Forbes