Copyright Newsweek
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced a new security strategy for country's western state of Michoacán after protests erupted over the assassination of a local mayor at the weekend. Uruapan Mayor Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez was shot seven times in public during Day of the Dead celebrations on Saturday and died shortly after at the hospital, authorities said. The attacker was killed at the scene and two suspects were arrested, according to officials. Manzo had stood on an anti-corruption ticket and opposition to cartels. He was well known for donning a bulletproof vest and for verbally challenging organized crime deeply routed in the state. Protests sprung up in the Michoacán capital, Morelia, as well as elsewhere in the state from Sunday. Sheinbaum, whose administration has vowed to crack down on violent crime and fielded criticism after Manzo's assassination, said National Guard troops and federal agents would bolster state forces in Michoacán. It is not clear how many additional personnel will head for the state, but Sheinbaum has deployed extra personnel elsewhere, including the western Sinaloa region. The presidential office said under the "Michoacán Plan for Peace and Justice," it would be easier for citizens to anonymously report extortion. Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch has said several operations already underway in Michoacán, including arresting those involved in organized crime, would be strengthened. The president said the plan will also address the "causes" of violence in the state, including by setting up more education and sports centers and improving coordination between local, regional and national authorities. The government will propose to state officials in Michoacán new ways to make the state prosecutor's office more effective, including by focusing on intelligence-gathering on the most serious crimes. Following the Gen Z Trend? Michoacán has for years been plagued by violence. It has been a hotspot for criminal groups battling over resources and territory that has seen self-defense groups spring up alongside both organized crime and government security forces. Prominent players like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Familia Michoacana operate in the state alongside other, more localized groups. Officials have often become targets. Salvador Bastidas, the mayor of the Michoacán town of Tacámbaro, was shot and killed in June. Mexican journalist Mauricio Cruz Solís was assassinated shortly after interviewing Manzo in October 2024. "I don't want to be just another mayor on the list of those who have been executed, those who have had their lives taken away," Manzo said in an interview earlier this year. His vocal anti-cartel stance had earned him additional military protection. Michoacán is vital for the world's avocado supply, and provides an estimated 80 percent of the avocados consumed in the U.S. Avocado growing requires a huge amount of resources, not least water and land, bringing the lucrative trade in "green gold" firmly into the sights of the Mexican cartels over the past few decades. The bodies of nine people were found dangling from a bridge in Uruapan in 2019 in what authorities described at the time as a "turf war." The remains of another seven people were also discovered dumped on a roadside. The Sheinbaum administration has not really succeeded in getting a grip on security and violence in Michoacán, said Bill Booth, a lecturer in Latin American History at University College London. It is somewhat of a "sore point" for the government, Booth told Newsweek. At least 18 people have been arrested while protesting in Morelia and Apatzingán, according to local reports. Protesters set fire to the municipal palace in Apatzingán late on Monday after a group of demonstrators threw stones at the building's windows, while riot police used tear gas to disperse protesters on Morelia, national media reported. Students demonstrated in the historic center of Morelia, with several demonstrators vandalizing at least two buildings used by local authorities, according to reports. Demonstrations across the world have increasingly become glued together by younger demographics, namely Gen-Z — or people born roughly after 1997. From Madagascar to Nepal, young people have been driving protests, their grievances specific to each nation but broadly tied to weariness with corruption, crime, opaque governance and evaporating economic opportunities. Peru's interim government in October declared a state of emergency in the capital, Lima, and nearby Callao after Gen Z=led protesters demanded action on corruption, violent crime and, often, the resignation of high-profile figures. Violent crime has surged in Peru in recent years, and a protester, named as 32-year-old Eduardo Ruiz, was killed earlier in the month. There is "clearly a generational frustration," Booth said, but said Michoacán's very specific circumstances are at the heart of the protest movement.
