Mexico's Beleaguered President Seizes on El Chapo's Arrest to Lift Gloom David Agren - The Guardian
go to original January 16, 2016

Listen: NPR's Scott Simon spoke with Genaro Lozano, a columnist in Mexico City and political science professor at Universidad Iberoamericana, about what Mexican citizens are saying about "El Chapo's" arrest and ongoing drug violence. (NPR.org)

Two days after fugitive cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was apprehended by Mexican marines, President Enrique Peña Nieto took to the airwaves to boast about the capture of a man whose two escapes from high-security prisons had come to symbolize institutional failure and corruption in the country.

“The detention of the world’s most wanted criminal confirms the coordination of our institutions in favor of the rule of law,” said Peña Nieto.

But a stream of news reports over recent days have offered a rough reminder that the rule of law – even a semblance of security – is absent from much of Mexico.

Over the weekend 17 people were abducted by gunmen as they travelled to a wedding; on Tuesday, five teachers were snatched from their school by kidnappers who are demanding a ransom. Both incidents took place in the violence-racked state of Guerrero – once best known for the beaches and glamour of Acapulco, but now notorious for the kidnap and presumed murder of 43 teacher trainees in 2014.

And a reminder of Mexico’s endemic political corruption came on Friday, when a former head of Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary party – and one-time ally of the president – was arrested in Spain as part of a money-laundering investigation. Humberto Moreira, who was detained at Madrid airport, resigned in 2012 after a debt scandal was uncovered in Coahuila, the state he had previously governed.

Read the rest at The Guardian

Related: "El Chapo" Lawyers Cited Donald Trump in Extradition Defense (CBS News)

Related: El Chapo Recaptured: Not Exactly "Mission Accomplished" (The Huffington Post)

Related: Mexico Drug War: With Capture of "El Chapo" Guzman, Which Mission Was Accomplished? (Mexico Voices)

Related: Readout of the President Obama’s Call with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico (WhiteHouse.gov)

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