In Mexico, even former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador was against the dissemination of so-called (narco)corridos, a musical genre that has exploded onto the global charts embodied in figures such as Peso Pluma and groups such as Fuerza Regida. But, in the end, what these songs do is express a reality. This reality is and will remain alive beyond any potential censorship that may be imposed on their musical contributions, because it is not there where the source of the problem lies. That reality, filled with drug use and trafficking, and deadly clashes between gangs and cartels, each with their codes of honor, symbolism, and slang, is there to stay. I think about this as I listen to Marlboro Rojo, a recent song by Fuerza Regida that captures all the essence of narcocorridos: (deadly) violence, women, and ostentation. And, at the same time, I read about the discovery this week of five members of the group Fugitivo—four musicians and their manager—who disappeared last Sunday after realizing that the place where they had been invited to perform, in the violent city of Reynosa, in the border state of Tamaulipas, was a vacant lot—strange that they hadn't checked this out first. Some speculate that the young musicians upset an organized crime group when they sang a controversial narcocorrido in a bar the night before.
Incidentally, the song, which refers to the leader of the powerful Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, belongs to another group that has two open investigations for "glorifying crime". After more than three days without any news of the members of the band Fugitivo, authorities reported the discovery of five bodies in an abandoned property. “The investigations led to an area where five bodies were found, which, based on preliminary characteristics, could correspond” to the manager and the musicians, reported the communications department of the Tamaulipas Security Secretariat. Meanwhile, in the equally hyperviolent border city of Juárez, the murder of a 30-year-old teacher has overflowed the cup of indignation that women there drink. The woman died of asphyxiation, and her body was found in an abandoned railway station. Yesterday, Saturday, a demonstration took place in Ciudad Juárez to protest the impunity that has emerged from this situation. “[We] are here because the violence has gotten out of hand. In just two weeks, we have experienced several homicides, and we see no action or statements from the authorities. The institutional silence is deafening,” denounced an activist.
Ecuador, Colombia
And so it goes not only in Mexico but also in Ecuador and Colombia, where the bodies of those killed violently pile up in morgues, whether as a result of gang feuds to secure dominance in a key area for drug trafficking or extortion activities, or to silence activists. In Ecuador, where the coasts are permanently stained with blood, five charred bodies were found in a vehicle in the province of Manabí. In Colombia, an official from the Colombian Ombudsman's Office was murdered in the department of Cesar, becoming the 67th human rights activist to be killed this year in the South American nation, at a rate of three per week.
