Thread by @loyndsview

"The killings last Monday, which led Pope Francis, himself a Jesuit, to bemoan #Mexico’s unrelenting violence, underscore how Mexican #organizedcrime groups rule over huge swaths of the country’s territory."

wsj.com/articles/killi…

1/ "Last year, U.S. Northern Command chief Gen. Glen VanHerck told a congressional committee that about one-third of Mexico’s territory is effectively run by organized crime groups. Mexico’s government denied the claim."

2/ "The two #Jesuits, Joaquín Mora, 80, and Javier Campos, 79, were killed inside their church, said Roberto Fierro, the attorney general of northern #Chihuahua state, where the killings occurred. Chihuahua is one of Mexico’s most violent states."

3/ "Mexico’s Catholic bishops criticized what they said was the failure by President Andrés Manuel #LópezObrador, a nationalist who won a landslide election victory in 2018, to curb criminal violence."

4/ “'#Crime has spread everywhere,' the bishops wrote Thursday. 'It manifests itself with levels of inhuman cruelty, in executions and massacres that have turned our country into one of the most insecure places on earth.'”

5/ "The killings took place after local cartel boss José Portillo, known as '#ElChueco,' or the twisted one, was enraged by the loss of a baseball game by a team he sponsored in the remote rural village of #Cerocahui, Mr. Fierro said."

6/ "Cerocahui sits in a region populated by indigenous people some 400 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border where #drugcartels fight for control of #opium and #marijuana cultivation, as well as illegal #logging and #alcohol sales."

7/ "The village is on a popular tourist route close to the #CopperCanyon, Mexico’s answer to the Grand Canyon."

8/ "Mr. Portillo has been a wanted man in Mexico since 2018, when he was accused of kidnapping & killing US tourist Patrick Braxton-Andrew. Chihuahua’s then-governor Javier Corral said... at the time that the North Carolina teacher had been 'cowardly & brutally murdered'...."

9/ "The 2 Jesuit victims had worked in the area for more than three decades ministering to the needs of the indigenous #Tarahumara population.... the spokeswoman for the Jesuits, said it was likely that Mr. Portillo... was baptized by one of the priests he is accused of killing."

10/ "Nearly 400,000 Mexicans have been killed since Mexico’s govt deployd the army to fight drug #gangs in 2006, most of them at the hands of the criminal groups. Many are bystanders caught in crossfire between warring gangs. Additionally, some 85,000 people have gone missing..."

11/ "More than 50 Catholic priests have been killed since the early 1990s, 7 of them since Mr. López Obrador took office in 2018, according to the Roman Catholic Multimedia Center...

'It’s time to revise security strategies that are failing,' the bishops wrote in their letter."

12/ "But during his morning news conference Thursday, Mr. López Obrador ruled out modifying policy. 'Change strategy? No,' he said."