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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2007 
Calderon Says He's Provided Peace
 Lisa J. Adams - Associated Press
| | President Felipe Calderon defended his decision to fight crime with the military and insisted that Mexico has experienced "more peace and certainty" during his first 45 days in office. (AP/Marco Ugarte) |
Mexico's president defended his decision to fight crime with the military and insisted that the country has experienced "more peace and certainty" during his first 45 days in office.
Felipe Calderon also said his administration has taken steps to tackle poverty and generate jobs aimed at stemming the continual tide of Mexican migrants seeking work in the United States.
"We have acted with decisiveness and energy to respond to the most urgent demands of the people: public safety, combating poverty and generating employment," Calderon told a news conference Sunday at the presidential residence. "Today Mexico has more peace and certainty than at the beginning of my term and that fills me with satisfaction."
Calderon is trying to win over the millions who voted for leftist opponent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the July 2 election. Lopez Obrador ran a campaign based on pledges to help the approximately 50 million people - nearly half the population of Mexico - who live in poverty, while casting Calderon as the candidate of big business and the rich.
The former Mexico City mayor lost the election by less than 1 percentage point but refused to accept the results, claiming there was widespread fraud. He has set up his own parallel government and has been touring the country criticizing Calderon and touting alternative ideas.
There are signs, however, that he has lost some of his support, including within his own left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party.
In an effort to further reduce the firebrand's popularity, Calderon has adopted many of Lopez Obrador's pledges. He plans to reduce poverty in the country's 100 poorest communities, provide health insurance for babies born during his six-year term, and expand health and anti-poverty programs championed under his predecessor, President Vicente Fox.
Calderon, who made reducing crime a major plank of his campaign platform, on Sunday defended his decision to begin military-led operations in several states to combat drug traffickers and organized crime.
The action, he said, has "met the goal we proposed from the beginning: re-establishing minimum conditions of safety in areas that are most threatened by crime, recuperating authority in a territory that was challenged by crime."
Last week, more than 1,000 Mexican army troops amassed in the Pacific resort town Acapulco, two other cities in the western state of Guerrero and the city of Tijuana, just across the border from San Diego, for a crackdown on drugs and crime, state officials said.
The mobilization followed the movement of more than 10,000 troops to two other states since Calderon took office on Dec. 1.
On Sunday, the president reiterated his pledge to establish "solid foundations for the creation of jobs," and said he would announce specific proposals later this week.
He declined to release details of his administration's proposed fiscal reforms, but confirmed that Treasury Secretary Agustin Carstens would begin discussions on the plans with legislators on Monday.
Fox's largest domestic projects failed in Mexico's opposition-dominated Congress. They included a fiscal reform proposal that involved taxing food and medicine, a proposal to open the energy sector to more private and foreign investment and a labor reform plan.
But the political climate has changed somewhat. The conservative National Action Party of Fox and Calderon now dominates both houses of Congress, while politicians from all parties agree on "the need for Mexico to increase public resources to attend social problems," Calderon said.
"That consensus can be the foundation to begin, I hope ... a responsible discussion on a fiscal reform."
On Sunday, Calderon also expressed his "most energetic protest" against the shooting death of a young Mexican illegal migrant by a U.S. border patrol agent in Arizona on Friday. He said the government had demanded a full investigation.
The agent was responding to a call about a group of people who were crossing the desert, said Rob Daniels, a Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. Upon arrival, the agent took six of the seven people into custody without incident but then started fighting with the man. The agent shot and killed the man, Daniels said.
The agent has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the case. |
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