…And Garduño went unpunished
Last Thursday, May 1, a new leadership position was established at the National Migration Institute (INM), with the arrival of Sergio Salomón Céspedes Peregrina, replacing Francisco Garduño Yáñez, who left his position as director of the agency 766 days after 40 migrants (most of them Central American) died and 27 more were seriously injured during a fire at the INM immigration station in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
Two years after the tragedy, none of the criminal cases against the 11 defendants have come to trial. Only three of the eight INM officials charged with the migrants' deaths are in jail; three of them were released after posting bail, and one remains a fugitive to this day. Three other individuals, two migrants originally from Venezuela (one of them accused of starting the fire) and a private security guard, are also in jail for this tragedy.
Meanwhile, the man primarily responsible for this disaster, Francisco Garduño Yáñez, managed to have the legal proceedings against him frozen for 18 months last January in exchange for six actions, including offering a public apology to the victims, which, by the way, has yet to occur. Why? Simple: Because that's justice in the stellar times of the so-called Fourth Transformation, where the law is applied with all its rigor and weight to adversaries and critics, and with dispensation and discretion to friends and loyal soldiers of the regime.
The legal proceedings against Garduño Yáñez for the alleged crime of improper performance of public office are, incidentally, not considered serious by our Penal Code. In fact, it is practically classified as an administrative offense, so the close friend of former President López Obrador can rest assured that no one will dare to touch a single hair on his head. Therefore, although the Attorney General's Office (FGR) has determined that there was a pattern of irresponsibility and omissions on the part of the INM (National Institute of Statistics and Census) and that this had led to the tragedy in Ciudad Juárez, there remains a certain degree of suspicion regarding the authority because it conducted a fast-track investigation that took less than 10 days to complete.
Now, what should we interpret the arrival of Céspedes Peregrina as the new head of the INM after serving two years as substitute governor of the state of Puebla? It's certainly difficult to assess how he will handle his new role within the public administration, but what has a positive impact per se is that the Ministry of the Interior, headed by Rosa Icela Rodríguez Velázquez, dared to appoint someone with a more humanistic approach to the head of this institute instead of giving this position to a jailer, because that's what Garduño Yáñez was.
And as for any possible punishment for this gentleman, it's best to forget about this issue, because Francisco Garduño's immediate fate will be identical to that of the magician Ignacio Ovalle Fernández, former head of Mexican Food Security (SEGALMEX), who disappeared 15 billion pesos and is living happily ever after.
Mantra of the day: Impunity.
Contact: www.lapoliticamedarisa.mx
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