Tel Aviv, Israel.- Several people in this country have asked me about the insecurity in which we Mexicans live. So far the news comes about violent and bloody events such as the one that occurred on Saturday in Irapuato, where 12 people, six women and six men, were shot to death inside a bar, or those that occurred on October 5 in Totolapan, Guerrero, where 20 people died when armed men shot them inside the municipal palace. 32 fatal victims of violence in less than two weeks are many for those who live in a country where 125 homicides are committed each year, or 0.3% of those registered in Mexico in the same period.
In Israel the rate or number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants is 1.49, while in Mexico it is 29.07. Perhaps that is why the people with whom I have spoken in this Middle Eastern country cannot understand what is happening in our country.
Due to the above, when they ask me about the insecurity that has become a constant in our lives for years, I cannot give them a simple answer.
I explain to them that Mexico has always been a violent country and that during the years in which the PRI had political control, government censorship prevented the population and the rest of the world from finding out about most of the crimes that were committed, which in largely contributed to creating a false perception of security throughout the country.
For example, since 1931 homicide rates of 10 or less have only been recorded in 1969, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. That in only six of 92 years the rates were this low only corroborates the high rates of violence that have characterized the reality of the country for almost a century.
I explain to them that most of the police, public ministries and judges in Mexico have always been inefficient and corrupt, that the administration and administration of justice is something that has only benefited the rich and powerful. For this reason, as read in impunidadcero.org, “in Mexico of every 100 crimes committed, only 6.4 are reported; of every 100 crimes that are reported, only 14 are solved. This means that the probability that a crime committed will be solved in our country is only 0.9 percent.”
I tell you that corruption, which has been chronic in our country since its foundation, led authorities and criminals to associate and that over the years this association included the heads of organized crime and high officials of the three levels of government.
I also explain that the demand for drugs in the United States led Mexican criminals to traffic marijuana and heroin since the beginning of the 20th century. During the 1940s, Mexico became a major supplier of heroin, and from the 1930s to the mid-1970s, Mexico’s traffickers supplied almost all of the marijuana consumed in the United States. When the demand declined, they began to transport cocaine and today, when fentanyl is a better business, they are the main suppliers of American addicts.
Anyway, I explain to them and even so they have a hard time understanding how a country like ours can be so bad.
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