Losing Control of Mexico

As Mexico’s homicide rate reached its highest level in six decades, the government released an even more alarming statistic: 80,517 people have disappeared since 2006. Hundreds of thousands of people have also fled their homes to escape violence, and the Mexican Congress is poised to pass the country’s first law to help the internally displaced. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has emphasized social programs to address the poverty at the root of the crime wave. Abrazos no balazos, he says: Hugs, not bullets. At the same time, he has created a 100,000-member national guard to reclaim areas with little state presence. It’s not clear that will make a significant difference. Kids learning how to defend their small town in the mountains and the arrest of Mexico’s former defense minister in the U.S. illustrate the complexity of the situation. It is the greatest crisis in Latin America since the “dirty wars” of the 1970s and 1980s.