This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchewitt, Professor Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army

War College, who is traveling. He's in Ecuador. I go to Mexico, however. Political assassination

is routinely part of the calculation now throughout the continent, never more so than Mexico.

A headline from Reuters, Mexican congressmen gunned down as political violence continues,

meaning under the new president.

A federal congressman assassinated in Mexico's Gulf Coast state of Veracruz,

latest killing in an outbreak of political violence.

Professor, is this news that there's more assassination in Veracruz state?

Or is this something that people say yes, and then tell the story about the previous

congressman shot down?

I want to know whether this has been normalized or whether it's seen as a

challenge to the new president. What's happened in Mexico really is part of the ongoing

tragedy of public insecurity and in corruption that continues to rock the country. That will continue

to be a tremendous challenge for new president, Claudia Shinebomb, to address.

But the particular incident that you referred to a member of the Morani Party, Benito Aguas,

who was killed in Veracruz, which is a important coastal port city in the southeast of the country,

that city in particular has been contested, believe, between the group of the country. That city in particular has been contested between the group of

Helisco Nueva Generation in some local groups, some surrogate groups. That is actually different from,

for example, the fighting between as many as 50 different groups in the state of Guerrero,

where in October there was a similar headline that the local

mayor there was killed. There have been periodic headlines of these types, indeed right

after the inauguration of Claudia Scheinbaum. We recall that there was another Mexican mayor who

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