Mexican president blames crime for thousands of deaths

Mexico's outgoing president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, defended his six-year administration's war on drug cartels and said it was "irresponsible" to blame the state or himself for the thousands of violent deaths reported since 2006. He was responding in an interview with the daily Milenio published online on 15 November, to critics who have blamed some 50-60,000 deaths on his decision to fight crime using federal police and the armed forces. One of these was his predecessor Vicente Fox Quesada, who said on 14 November that this had been "a lost war." Calderón told Milenio the dead were to do with "criminals who are killing people, some innocent others probably linked to rival cartels." Violence in Mexico he said "is not a consequence of the Federal Government's actions" but "of violence which we have seen rising in many states," because he said cartels were no longer just sending drugs outwards but seeking to control Mexican territory. This was "a change in the dimension of criminality that was never understood," he said. Mexico he said now had "powerful" armed and police forces, and he praised the intelligence services that had helped catch 25 of Mexico's 37 most wanted criminals, during his term. He said he found Mexican intelligence "totally devastated" when he succeeded Fox, as it had been dismantled. This had been done for the perception that it had been used before 2000 as a "political instrument" to "spy on opponents", and there "was something in that" Calderón admitted. Mexico was governed from 1929 to 2000 by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a centrist party that became increasingly authoritarian and is set to recover the presidency on 1 December. The conservative National Action Party (PAN) to which Fox and Calderón belong, won elections in 2000 and Fox became president. But aside his later criticisms of Calderón, he angered the PAN by backing the PRI candidate in the 2012 general elections. Calderón told Milenio he had not spoken to Fox for some time. Fox in turn told the broadcaster Univisión on 14 November that he had "time and again" advised Calderón not to use the army to fight cartels, but "he did exactly the opposite and we are seeing the consequences today." The only way to win against drugs he said "is by being with our children, educating and informing them and taking responsibility for our children's behaviour." He said the state could not be expected to protect "our children and prevent them from accessing drugs." He also chided the United States for allegedly doing little to curb the habits of its "60 million" drug users. "We are doing all the work for them," he said.