The curtain does not fall completely
The main scene has ended, but the security theater in Mexico continues with secondary acts. After the operation that ended the life of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, ‘El Mencho’, the United States Embassy in Mexico took a step back from its most dramatic alert.
It is no longer asking its citizens to shelter at home. Public transportation and businesses, it says, “continue to return to normal operations.”
“Public transportation and businesses continue to return to normal operations following a police operation that took place on February 22”
But here is the detail that many overlook: US official personnel remain under lock and key. Night curfew in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, Ciudad Guzmán and Tijuana. Instructions not to leave their metropolitan areas in Jalisco and Monterrey.
It’s as if the official script says ‘calm down’ to the audience, but the actors behind the scenes continue to act as if the play were a thriller.
Flights and roads: half normality
Flights from Guadalajara have returned to normal, with airlines scheduling additional flights. But the advice between the lines is telling: if your direct flight to the US is cancelled, consider a connection through another city.
On the highways, there are no closures ordered by authorities, but some roads – including the crucial Guadalajara-Puerto Vallarta route – are not yet fully open.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, the Mexican Embassy in Washington painted a more optimistic picture. Esteban Moctezuma highlighted that “the security situation has stabilized” and that air operations were normalized.
“Air operations have normalized and international airlines resumed flights today”
But even in that message there is an asterisk: if you travel through Jalisco, “some local safety measures remain in place.”
The real story is not in what the statements say, but in what governments do. While they tell tourists they can breathe easy, they tell their own staff not to go out at night. That contrast speaks louder than a thousand words about how they really see the post-Mencho landscape.
In the end, as my father taught me, politics – and diplomacy – is about reading between the lines. Today the lines say: ‘They can go out… but we don’t take the risk.’
