Catholic bishops in Mexico claim to have negotiated a potential peace agreement with drug cartel leaders
Four Roman Catholic bishops have met with Mexican drug cartel leaders with the aim of negotiating a potential peace agreement, one of the bishops stated, and President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday that he approves of such talks.
The revelations by the Bishop of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, José de Jesús Gonzalez Hernandez, during a public appearance, illustrate how much the government's policy of not confronting the cartels has left ordinary citizens to negotiate their own peace agreements with the gangs.
Mr. Lopez Obrador acknowledged that this was not the first time religious leaders have organized such discussions, having already done so in the neighboring state of Michoacan and in other states.
"Priests and members of all churches have participated in the pacification of the country. I think that is very good," said Mr. Lopez Obrador the day after the revelation of the negotiations' existence, specifying that such discussions had already taken place in the neighboring state of Michoacan and in other parts of Mexico. "The church does it, I can attest to that, in Michoacan, and it does it in other places."
Mr. Lopez Obrador said that while he had no problem with the talks, he would not approve "any agreement signifying the granting of impunity, privileges, or licenses to steal."
A priest from a parish in Michoacan, whose town has been dominated for years by one cartel or another, found this statement ringing and stumbling. "It is an implicit recognition that they (the government) cannot ensure the security of the country," said the priest, who cannot be named for security reasons.
"There is no doubt that we must speak to certain people, especially when it concerns people's safety, but that does not mean we agree with them," the priest added. For example, residents have asked him to question cartel leaders about the fate of missing relatives.
Many ordinary Mexicans have discreetly agreed to pay protection fees to drug cartels, for fear of being attacked or seeing their homes or businesses burned. The Church has also suffered – priests have also been killed by cartels – but some gang leaders do speak with church officials.
The bishop said the latest talks failed because the cartels and drug trafficking gangs did not want to stop fighting over territories in the state of Guerrero, on the Pacific coast. These internal struggles have blocked transportation and led to dozens of murders in recent months.
"They asked for a truce, but under certain conditions," said Mr. Gonzalez Hernandez about the talks that took place a few weeks ago. "But these conditions were not accepted by one of the participants."
Asked by local journalists about these conditions, the bishop replied "territories."
Mexican drug cartels and gangs do not just sell or smuggle drugs; they extort money from almost every business sector in the territories they control.
As part of Lopez Obrador's policy of "hugs, not bullets," the government has avoided direct confrontation with the cartels, allowing them to take control of a dozen medium-sized towns, where the prices of most goods are higher because they include a "tax" imposed by the cartels.
Retired Bishop Salvador Rangel, who led the same diocese until 2022, told The Associated Press that he had been informed of the negotiations by people present on the ground.
He did not identify the cartels present, but there are at least a dozen such gangs fighting for control of various regions in the state of Guerrero, on the Pacific coast, where the resort of Acapulco is located.
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Mr. Rangel confirmed that the negotiations failed because the gangs "did not want to concede anything."
However, he defended the negotiations. When he was bishop, he had already spoken openly about meetings with gang leaders to seek peace. "I think any attempt to achieve peace and harmony is valid," he said.
Mr. Gonzalez Hernandez suggested that this approach had been at least implicitly approved by Pope Francis during a meeting with the bishops last year.
A Vatican spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the bishop's remarks. The Vatican rarely comments on the Pope's private audiences.
That said, the position expressed by the bishop aligns with Francis's tendency to rely on the expertise of bishops on the ground and his conviction that dialogue is necessary at all costs.
Francis has often been questioned, for example, about his willingness to send an emissary to Moscow to try to negotiate with the Kremlin. While Francis has said one should "never dialogue with the devil," he has insisted that in matters of war and peace, dialogue with the aggressor is the only way to find paths to peace, "even when it stinks."
It is clear this is not a role the Church relishes. As the parish priest noted, "we would not have to do this if the government did its job properly."
This article was originally published by APNews and then translated by LeCatho | Original link.