Federal police stands guard near a federal ministry vehicle on a road at an area near clandestine graves at Pueblo Viejo, in the outskirts of Iguala, southern Mexican state of Guerrero on Friday.JORGE DAN LOPEZ/Reuters
Since taking office nearly two years ago, President Enrique Pena Nieto has sought to project an image of Mexico on the move, beating back chronic drug violence and pressing ahead with historic constitutional and economic reforms, even offering to contribute soldiers to UN peacekeeping missions in other parts of the globe.
The problem is that, back home, Mexico's grotesque cycle of violence continues, with soldiers and police implicated in recent atrocities. Mr. Pena Nieto's determination to focus on Mexico's moment has been derailed by Mexico's mess.
International human rights groups are calling the massacre of 22 suspected gang members in southern Mexico this year a test case for the President, and the world is demanding answers about the forced disappearance of 43 teachers' college students, who are feared to be buried in mass graves discovered after they vanished Sept. 26.
Mr. Pena Nieto, unusually, addressed the violence twice this week as everyone from outraged Mexicans to the United Nations and the U.S. State Department called for a full accounting in both mass killings. He said he has exhorted his security cabinet to step up the investigation.
"This tarnishes the collective national effort we have to truly turn Mexico into a country of greater progress and development," he said, referring to the disappearance of the 43 students.
Mr. Pena Nieto took office vowing to change the narrative after his predecessor's bloody war on drugs, portraying Mexico as ready to lead and as fertile ground for foreign investment. His administration has pushed through reforms to the education system, changed the tax code and opened the energy sector to more foreign investment, among other achievements. He can also point to a string of high-profile drug arrests.
But even those successes have come with grim side effects. As the major drug organizations have been broken up, smaller bands have taken their place, causing a spike in non-drug crimes that more directly affect citizens, such as kidnapping and extortion. The students in the southern state of Guerrero allegedly went missing at the hands of corrupt police working with the Guerreros Unidos, born out of the breakup of the once-powerful Beltran Leyva cartel.
The mayor of Iguala, where the students disappeared, is on the run amid accusations he and his wife were linked to the drug gang and to killings, allegations that date back at least to last year.
Some are calling this the biggest crisis so far of the Pena Nieto administration, a watershed moment similar to past scandals that led to the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission and the dismantling of Mexico's earlier organization for political spying.