The Secretary of Security of Mexico, Omar García Harfuch, visited Michoacán this Thursday together with the Secretary of Defense, General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo. It is the first time he has visited that area since the announcement last Sunday of a new state urban plan. After landing in Morelia to meet with the various authorities of the territory, Harfuch traveled to Uruapan, where he toured the streets aboard an army vehicle and surrounded by a group of soldiers. It is the municipality that finds itself in the midst of the storm of strong violence that hits the state, still shocked by the murder, at the beginning of November, of the then mayor Carlos Manzo.
President Claudia Sheinbaum announced during her usual morning conference that the Security Cabinet will travel to the two municipalities of Michoacan, a new stage in the pacification plan, which has deployed the National Guard, the Armed Forces and federal investigative teams throughout the state. Asked about the Cabinet’s progress on the peace plan, the president explained that they will provide the information next week: “Remember that when we presented the Plan, I said: ‘Every month we will report how we are doing.’ Next week we will present how we will start, with what work,” he explained.
In the last few hours Harfuch met with the governor of Michoacán, Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla, and the mayors of some cities in the territory, such as Álvaro Obregón or Morelia. Sheinbaum left it open whether he will also travel to the state soon: “We’ll see, we’ll see. But the government is there,” he added. The president also did not confirm whether she will participate in the meetings of the Cabinet in the United States, because it seeks to “well consolidate” the plan for Michoacán. “We will see if, at the same time, we will have meetings throughout the country or leave them until January,” he defended.
The murder of Manzo by a 17-year-old youth, attributed to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), showed the country the wounds of a territory marked by violence. A week after the tragedy, Sheinbaum presented this pacification plan, which includes a hundred actions, characterized by the disbursement of 57 billion pesos and the deployment of 5,000 soldiers throughout the territory. It is the reaction to an event that highlights data such as insecurity, even in Uruapan: 82.6% of the inhabitants of the municipality considered it unsafe in the third quarter of the year. This placed the territory as the fifth most dangerous in the country.
