No one has seen Rubén Rocha Moya since the night of May 1, when he announced in a video that he was requesting a leave of absence from the office of governor of Sinaloa. It was then a holiday, Labor Day, and the politician said he needed to stop working, as if in penance after U.S. authorities accused him and nine of his collaborators of alleged ties to factions of the Sinaloa cartel.

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“The world will stand still, and the eyes of the world will be focused on North America,” the 56-year-old Swiss president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, said a few days ago from the United Nations headquarters in New York. With four days to go before the ball starts rolling, the three host countries — the United States, Mexico, and Canada — say they have everything ready. Or, more precisely, almost everything. The biggest soccer tournament in history — 48 national teams playing a total of 104 matches — takes place amid various circumstances that complicate organization: the United States remains at war with Iran, President Donald Trump’s strict immigration policies are frightening away many supporters, and FIFA’s dynamic-pricing ticket system has put seats out of reach for much of the fan base.

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A bitter spring in the southern part of North America. Tensions between Mexico and the United States are escalating rapidly, straining the very fibers and tendons that, until a few weeks ago, had sustained the bilateral relationship without much difficulty. The smooth and fruitful security cooperation that characterized the first year of Donald Trump’s administration has recently turned into a nightmare, with developments that paint a rather bizarre picture — some of which are cause for concern for the Mexican government led by Claudia Sheinbaum, such as the growing presence of CIA agents in the country. This week, U.S. media outlets revealed that the intelligence agency orchestrated the March car bomb attack against a mid-level operative of the Sinaloa Cartel near the capital. Both governments have denied the information, with varying degrees of intensity.

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Four years ago, Salvador Rangel, then Bishop of Chilpancingo-Chilapa, outlined in an interview the motivations behind the battles in central Guerrero state, a territory he knew very well. At the time, he was close to Celso Ortega, leader of the Los Ardillos criminal group. Rangel pointed out that the fighting in the region, which has recently resurfaced in several communities in the lower mountains, has never been about drugs. “It’s not about drugs, because there aren’t any drugs here!” the bishop declared. “Celso tells me, ‘not even the damn marijuana grows here.’ So, the issue is political,” he added. Read in retrospect, his statements offer an interesting perspective on the current violence.

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The World Cup celebrations reflect the decline in homicidal violence in Mexico — a scourge that has persistently plagued the country over the past 20 years and the tip of a gigantic iceberg: criminal governance, the source of the country’s major unresolved problem. The news is good and is shining brightly on the global stage. On the opening day of the tournament, June 11, Mexico recorded 30 homicides, according to preliminary figures from the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), a record low. This Tuesday, with the latest data added to the platform, the figure hit a new low of 27.

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