Due to the advances and evolution of organized crime in the country, the public security model that maintains peace in Yucatán also needs an updated strategy, where police intelligence is fundamental, not just police equipment and training.
Lawyer, consultant, and former national commissioner of the now-defunct Federal Police, Manelich Castilla Craviotto, suggests that the first step is to recognize that organized crime is a problem that affects the entire country and that Yucatán is not exempt from the establishment of these criminal interests in the state.
To the extent that there is close communication with the Federal Government, among the three neighboring states (Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Yucatán), and by controlling the state’s growth, there will be a greater chance of having a safe Yucatán for the long term.
Castilla Craviotto warns that neither the government nor the police can relax during any of the five years remaining under the Morena administration and the head of the state Executive Branch, Joaquín Díaz Mena.
Manelich Castilla, a native of Yucatan, gives his opinion, at the newspaper’s request, on the first year of Morena’s administration in Yucatán regarding public security.
One of the questions he answered was whether the Yucatán government is shielding the state from the advance and proximity of organized crime operating in Quintana Roo.
“The concept of shielding is very subjective,” he notes. “Yucatán has been chosen by various criminals as a place to camouflage themselves (blend into the environment), rest, and have a family life, knowing that it is a peaceful state and that there are no competing interests.”
“What happens when criminal interests enter into disputes in a state, a municipality, or a city?” he explains. “Well, then, the attacks, homicides, illegal deprivations of liberty, misnamed kidnappings, begin. A very different dynamic begins to emerge.”
“Yucatán is, historically, I dare say, in the last 20 or 25 years, a place where the tranquility and living conditions have allowed some criminal leaders to establish themselves there permanently or temporarily, but that’s the reason.”
Obligation
“So, protecting the state, I think, is subjective; the essential thing is to exchange information; it’s an obligation between security forces. It’s not necessary to allow any of these groups or any of these criminal leaders to feel so comfortable that one day they might want to start working with the same criminal logic in Yucatán.”
“I think the territory helps a lot, and I insist, the people help to have a solid police force, it helps to have a Prosecutor’s Office that I think also has good capabilities compared to other states,” he believes.
“The protection has to be that: not allowing anyone who shouldn’t be in Yucatán to feel comfortable in our state.”
How do you perceive this government’s work on public security? He was asked.
“First, we must remember that this administration (of Díaz Mena) chose, as other administrations have done, to continue the work being done in security matters: it ratified the Secretary of Security (Luis Felipe Saidén Ojeda, who has held the position for 24 years),” he says. “In that sense, it seems to me that things haven’t changed much.”
“There is a central strategy, which is the shielding of Yucatán. They chose to keep the experienced leaders they have in the state, and for that reason, it would seem very difficult to me to make any fundamental changes to what this administration is doing.”
Security in Yucatán: Is Yucatán shielded?
Same strategy
“If they had chosen to appoint new authorities, a new model, we would be making a much more rigorous, much more in-depth evaluation, but what I have been able to gather from the perspective of those who are deeply interested in what happens in Yucatán, it seems to me that the security policy remains based on the same strategy,” he noted.
In other words, was it the right decision to keep the head of the Ministry of Public Security and his key collaborators in place because they have maintained peace?
“In sports, we sometimes say that a winning team repeats, right? So it seems to me that the levels that Yucatán maintains, statistically speaking, not just in terms of perception, but what the statistics tell us, are that it continues to be an entity with a high level of security.”
“I think that what has happened in Yucatán merits maintaining, in some way, the path that has led us to be the third safest entity in Mexico today, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), in terms of perceived security,” he reiterates.
Is this public security model we have sustainable in the long term, or is structural reengineering required to prevent crime from continuing to advance?
“It’s a very important question. To begin with, every security model has to adapt to changing times. While I don’t see the conditions or reasons to rebuild the entire security model, I don’t see the conditions or reasons to rebuild the entire security model.”
With information from yucatan.com.mx
