Killings, disappearings, authority abuse and other consequences of ‘El Chapo’s war

In ‘El Chapo’, the deal Joaquín Guzmán had with the government is at stake: his war has caused the death of thousands of innocents.

Por:Univision

1/24

‘El Chapo’ has been fighting a war against ‘Los Emes’ and ‘El Chente’ with the government on his side. However, civilians have suffered more than anyone. Collateral damage has been disastrous.

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2/24

Evelina’s daughter, Martha, is just a name in a long list of innocent victims. ‘La Federación’ attacked the bar in Nuevo Laredo where she was hanging out. Everyone was shot on the spot, but she disappeared without a trace.

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3/24

Evelina and dozens of other families were waiting for hours to hear news about their children’s whereabouts. The authorities barely explained that it was an attack from the Sinaloa cartel to the Gulf cartel, and said they could be kept informed.

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4/24

Evelina elbowed her way through the crowd and yelled at the officer in charge of the investigation: “Hey! My daughter isn’t dead! You have to find her!”, but he ignored her. One of the guards told her that girls like hers were often taken to Culiacán.

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5/24

After the officer’s lazy answer, Evelina decided not to count on the authorities and prepared herself to go look for her daughter in Culiacán. She asked around about her in bars and to the people in the street, and she also pasted some of Maartha’s pictures on walls and lampposts.

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6/24

Two men disguised as police officers approached Evelina and assured her they had seen her daughter. “She’s alive, a drug lord from around here shows her off as his doll”, they said, and they informed her she would need a large sum of money to negotiate seeing her again.

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7/24

Evelina talked her husband into selling his taxi, his only income source, and other valuable objects in order to gather the money they needed to get their daughter back.

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8/24

The two police officers took Evelina to an empty lot. They asked her for the money to negotiate with the drug lord. Evelina demanded a proof of her daughter’s identity. She tried to escape when she noticed they were lying, but it was too late.

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9/24

Evelina blew out in the middle of one of president Felipe Alarcón’s conferences. He was boasting about the results of his war on drugs. She spoke of her daughter’s tragedy, and of other young people who had died or disappeared, and demanded that he ‘stopped his war’.

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10/24

The other side of the war is forcing kidnapped young people to work for the drug cartels. Omar was captured by ‘Los EMES’ in a Nuevo Laredo neighborhood and recruited to become a hitman.

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11/24

Omar and the other kids his age who had been kidnapped met the ‘M16’, who clearly warned them: from now on, they worked for them and had to answer to ‘El Cano’, leader of ‘Los EMES’. “There are no deserters here. If you’re no good, you’re eliminated”.

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12/24

The ‘M16’ took Omar away to test him and “see what he was made of”. He gave him a weapon and ordered him to kill one of ‘El Chapo’s men. Omar was petrified.

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13/24

The ‘M16’ took out his gun and pointed it at Omar: “It’s him or you”, he said. Omar raised his arm and pointed the gun at the enemy hitman, but his hand shook and he couldn’t press the trigger.

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14/24

The ‘M16’ looked at Omar with contempt and shot the enemy hitman. “You’re going to die, but first we’re going to make you suffer so much you’ll beg us to kill you”, he warned the terrified young man.

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15/24

Omar received a visit from another man within the organization, who told him he had another chance and gave him a packet of cocaine “to help him get the courage he needed”.

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16/24

Omar started to fill the effects of the cocaine he had consumed. Alone with his thoughts, he could hear nothing but the ‘M16’s orders, telling him to kill.

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17/24

The ‘M16’ gave Omar the gun to kill a man once again. This time, his hand didn’t shake and he shot. His eyes got lost in his first victim.

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18/24

The peasants in charge of the ‘Triángulo dorado’ poppy fields are also in the list of victims of ‘El Chapo’s war against the other cartels.

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19/24

A few of the heavily-armed military men employed by Joaquín Guzmán captured a field and threatened all the surviving peasants. “You used to work for Chente. Now you work for Sinaloa, understood?”, was their instruction.

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20/24

A couple of peasants talked about how terribly bad the new ‘patrones’ were to them. Zenaida said to Juan: “I thought no one was worse than the Juárez people, but these guys make me miss them”.

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21/24

After the military officers gave him a beating, Juan, the one in charge of the crops, urged his wife to escape as soon as possible. They decided to cross the plantation at night, trying to evade security together with another couple and their son.

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22/24

Unfortunately, one of the soldiers heard the peasants moving. One of them stayed to confront him while the others escape. His excuses were useless: he was murdered.

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23/24

Juan and Zenaida managed to run away from the rain of gunfire. The son of their murdered friends was with them. They got far from ‘Triángulo Dorado’ and reached Mexico City to begin a new life, away from drug trafficking.

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24/24

How many more victims will the Drug War take? What will be the next step for ‘El Chapo’? Will there be peace? Find out on Sundays at 10PM/9C on Univision.

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