Thursday 15 November 2012

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.

At least 20 killed in Mexico mid-week

"At least" 20 were reported killed or found dead around Mexico on 12-14 November, presumed victims of criminal violence and most likely of organized crime. These included: a bus driver shot before a bus-full of passengers in Acapulco on the western coast, four gunned down outside a brewery in Ciudad Valles near the eastern port of Tampico, five bodies found at the back of an estate car in Ecatepec outside Mexico City and two including a journalist shot dead in Tehuacán, in the eastern state of Puebla, Proceso reported on 13 and 14 November. The journalist was shot while driving from an assignment; the other victim was a former policewoman, CNN reported. In the north-eastern state of Nuevo León, police arrested on 10 November, 22 suspects identified as members of the Gulf Cartel and working in a team led by a 19-year-old, Proceso reported on 14 November. The "cell," including three members aged 15-17, was thought involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping and murders in the district of China where the suspects were arrested, Nuevo León's security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano said. Authorities revealed on 13 November the arrests of three other presumed members of cartels, Proceso reported. These were identified as Mario Arturo Zurita, head of The Zetas in the northern district of Saltillo arrested on 12 November, and two members of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, detained on 9 November in the eastern port of Veracruz. Separately the mayor of El Bosque in the southern state of Chiapas and two municipal offficials were shot and injured in an ambush, while driving to nearby Simojovel on 13 November, Proceso reported.