Responding to calls for a peace deal with drug cartels, Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador raised eyebrows this week, telling reporters he agrees. I agree. Hopefully, peace can be reached.
It's what we all want, an end to the violence. It was a surprise statement to many of those who've been fighting the cartels for years. But it came after a plea in an open letter from activists who were searching for their missing loved ones, the thousands of so-called disappeared victims of the criminal syndicates.
Delia Quiroa is the author of the letter, calling for a radical solution, a peace deal between the government and the cartels. It's the government that has forced us to ask the cartels to end the violence and the disappearances. Since they don't want to assume the responsibility of searching for our family members, we find ourselves having to plead with criminal organizations, with Mexican cartels.
This controversial concept for a peace pact between the government and the cartels has stirred debate, particularly since the president weighed in. Lopez Obrador's administration has seen more violence than any other in Mexico's history, with more than 156,000 murders recorded during his four and a half years in office. In that same time, more than 40,000 people have been reported missing, according to the government's own figures.
The crisis of disappeared persons in Mexico is the worst of its kind in Latin America. And as the spiral of violence continues to worsen, many are wondering if a peace deal between drug cartels and the government really is that radical of an idea. Security experts say that while controversial, such a plan isn't outside the realm of possibility.
Any negotiation with drug dealers is a negotiation with an armed group. They have firepower. And in some cases, in many cases, they have much more firepower than the state.
We need to think of it as a complex peace-building strategy. Though Mexico's government has increased resources for searching for missing persons, the sheer number of disappeared is overwhelming, guaranteeing that without some solution to the crisis, the search for loved ones will go on indefinitely. Manuel Rapalo, Al Jazeera, Mexico City.