Rejecting a renewed "war" against drug traffickers, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday unveiled her strategy to battle organized crime in a nation where each day brings word of new assassinations, gang wars, massacres and other bloodshed.
"The war against el narco will not return," Sheinbaum, who took office last week, said in her daily news conference.
Instead, she outlined a four-point strategy that emphasized intelligence-gathering, troop deployment, improved federal-state coordination and providing opportunities to dissuade impoverished young people from joining organized crime — which is among Mexico's major employers.
A centerpiece of the plan is doubling down on the often-criticized "hugs not bullets" strategy of Sheinbaum's predecessor and mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
During his six-year term, López Obrador de-emphasized direct conflict with cartels and instead bolstered scholarships, job training, economic aid and other initiatives in a bid to provide alternative career paths for at-risk youth.
The government views "as a priority ... reducing poverty, closing gaps of inequality and generating opportunities so that the young have access to a better quality of life," said Omar García Harfuch, Sheinbaum's secretary of security.
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Poster Comment:
Call me crazy, but I can see this ending badly.