Translation: AMLO is big mad about El Mayo getting abducted and arrested (I'll get into possible reasons below) and is being pissy about it so he's grinding an axe that he's ground publicly before because it's an ongoing sovereignty issue he's cranky about.
Why is AMLO choked about the El Mayo incident
- This one kind of depends on how conspiratorial you feel like being. It's absolutely beyond doubt that cartels influence the Mexican government (civilian, and military) and that Plato o Plomo 2.0 has worked very well on politicians for the cartels since the original Cartel Guadalajara days in the 70's-80's. There's also underlying questions about who has done who favours (in both directions) and El Mayo has been a power broker for decades. There's very little doubt that numerous powerful people have been on his payroll or at the minimum exchanged favours with him over the years. This is further supported by the old school Sinaloa cartel that took power from the collapse of the Guadalajara cartel being less violent than cartels that have evolved over the last 15-20 years (Los Zetas, Los Templarios, and most notably today the CNJG). It just makes sense for the government to quietly put their thumb on the scale to support old school El Mayo over the years. It's relatively well accepted that he helped curb Chapo's worst impulses, and has been about as much of a businessman as you're going to get in a culture that hangs the bodies of murdered rivals from bridges. It's entirely possible that El Mayo remained something of an asset to the Mexican government to this day and that's now gone forever.
- There is still a pretty deep wound in Mexican political culture from the Kiki Camarena backlash. Chapo's son (who abducted El Mayo and turned himself in at the same time in El Paso) has been charged with "Treason" by the mexican government as part of the package of things they're charging him with (this all of course doesn't matter as he's probably doing the next 30-40 years in US federal prison). The Mexicans amended Treason to include forceable abduction of a Mexican citizen across international borders as treasonous after Mexican nationals were involved in abducting and smuggling the doctor involved in keeping Camarena alive to be interogated by the cartel that killed him. This can kind of be interpreted two ways I guess depending on how nihilist you want to be on the marriage between cartels and the government.
- El Mayo was lured to a meeting by El Chapo's son by promise of it being a meeting between them and the new governor of Sinaloa (from the same party as AMLO, Morena). Whether true or not, this makes it appear at least on some level that top cartel bosses have direct access and influence to positions in the government as high as Governors....which is of course true, but nobody wants that out in the open. The Governor of course claims they had no knowledge of this and wasn't even in the state at the time.
Why is AMLO attacking the MCCI?
- The MCCI is a non profit that investigates mexican government corruption, which obviously exists and at high level. USAID is their largest financial backer, which AMLO has always been pissy about. Again this can be taken a few ways imo. On one hand it's entirely possible that he's cranky that some mexican government corruption (that he's answerable for whether involved or not) is brought out into the open without his government being able to sanitize and message it first and that in itself can be looked at depending on the degree he's personal involved in any government corruption. Also though, his public argument deserves to be taken at least partially at face value as well. How would the Americans react to an "anti corruption" group starting up in Washington DC, funded by Mexico, that was detailing lobbyiest influence, supreme court corruption, etc, etc, etc. Fucking poorly. That's how they would react.
