Narco-violence, fear and politics: Specter of terrorism looms over relationship between Mexico and the United States The barbarity of recent weeks has reignited the debate on the use of terror by criminal groups, but its implications also cross over issues such as migration, trade, and the US presidential election Two car bombs in Guanajuato. The decapitation of the mayor of Chilpancingo. The discovery of a dismembered body abandoned in a cooler wrapped with gift bows in Sinaloa.
In the midst of a spiral that left almost 200,000 people dead during the last six-year term, violence has reached levels of sophistication and barbarity that go beyond what statistics are able to record. The security crisis has been the main challenge at the beginning of Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration and has placed Mexico at the forefront of a discussion as uncomfortable as it is delicate: can the events of the last few weeks be considered acts of terrorism ? It is not just a label. The debate has resurfaced at a critical moment: on the eve of the U.
S. election, in an atmosphere of complete distrust and reproaches between the two countries, and in view of the possibility of victory for a candidate — Donald Trump — who has for years pursued the idea of naming drug cartels as terrorist groups, with potentially disastrous consequences. “It’s a very thorny issue,” warns Mauricio Meschoulam, an internationalist specializing in terrorism who has studied the phenomenon in Mexico for 14 year.