Mexico’s president asks residents to reject drug gang presents

MEXICO Metropolis (AP) — Mexico’s president appealed to the country’s citizens Tuesday not to take holiday getaway handouts and presents from drug gangs, right after films posted online showed garish pickup trucks handing out loads of gifts when bystanders described the drivers as users of the Jalisco drug cartel.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed that some drug gangs had been looking to resume these giveaways — typically noticed yrs back — to obtain the guidance of the community population.

López Obrador reported in his morning press briefing that neighborhood citizens in some communities have tried using to protect traffickers, halt drug seizures or oppose the installation of Countrywide Guard bases supposed to battle drug trafficking.

Authorities have not confirmed the supply of the presents — largely toys — in the Dec. 21 handout in a very low-revenue community in the metropolis of Guadalajara, the money of Jalisco point out.

A convoy of vans carrying inflatable Santa decorations and Xmas lights drove via the community, blaring “narco corrido” tunes praising the Jalisco cartel and a nearby leader of the gang, acknowledged by the alias “RR.”

A bystander in 1 video clip is heard indicating, “All RR’s persons. Who says they do not give you everything? Why does not the federal government do the exact?”

Questioned about the movies Tuesday, López Obrador conceded the follow was re-emerging in the 2010s, such cartel Xmas gift rounds had been frequent in the northern border point out of Tamaulipas. López Obrador claimed it was section of a system by prison gangs to gain preferred assistance.

“Since the get started of this administration, we realized, it was obvious, it was community history, that legal gangs had been relying a good deal on social bases, on persons in the communities,” the president reported. ”They use the persons as (human) shields.”

“Lately, some teams are striving to revive this (gift-giving) process by getting people today to assistance them,” López Obrador explained. “When there is a cocaine seizure, communities appear out and defend the traffickers, and even check out to abduct users of the military and (Countrywide) Guard, to protect against the seizure of the cocaine.”

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Local citizens in a few states have also held demonstrations in opposition to the development of barracks for the Nationwide Guard. López Obrador attributed what he described as “three or 4 cases” of area opposition to cartel affect. However, in the circumstance of demonstrations in Mexico Metropolis, citizens have mentioned they view the barracks as avoidable, environmentally detrimental or most likely to enhance violence in the community.

Mexico’s most massive exhibit of local assist for prison gangs has occur for gas-theft gangs that drill into federal government pipelines to steal gasoline and diesel. Simply because the fuel thieves allow local people today also collect gas from the unlawful faucets, lots of communities fought raids by police and the military.

But López Obrador mentioned his campaign in opposition to fuel theft has weakened that form of collaboration with criminals.

“There was this sort of support, all of that has been disappearing mainly because folks know it is illegal and they should not secure criminals,” the president explained. “What I explain to individuals is that they should not permit them selves be manipulated, they should not protect these gangs.”