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 News from Around the Americas | February 2007 
Fox Gets Candid in Dallas Discussions
 Alfredo Corchado - Dallas Morning News
| | Mexico's ex-president admits mistakes in drug fight, blasts border wall. |
Former President Vicente Fox continued to break taboos Tuesday in Dallas – acknowledging his own errors, praising his successor, criticizing opponents and warning the U.S. that building a wall along its 2,000-mile border would be devastating.
In wide-ranging discussions with Dallas business leaders and high school and college students at Southern Methodist University, Mr. Fox didn't mince words, at times displaying his famous loose tongue.
In a private meeting with key supporters from Mexico and the U.S., Mr. Fox also talked about plans for Mexico's first presidential library, under construction at his ranch in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. And he talked of recruiting scholars from the Dallas area to serve as advisers to his study center, said Clara Borja Hinojosa, one of the few dozen who attended the luncheon at the Mansion on Turtle Creek.
In his talk with an estimated 1,000 students at SMU's student center, Mr. Fox for the first time acknowledged that his efforts to tackle organized crime in Mexico didn't work as he had envisioned. Questioned by 22-year-old Eduardo Barclay Nihil, a senior finance major at SMU, about border violence in his parents' hometown of Nuevo Laredo, Mr. Fox said:
"I'm the first to admit that we didn't accomplish what we had as our objective," defeating drug traffickers.
Mr. Fox blamed both U.S. demand for the increased flow of illegal drugs from Mexico and the rise of traffickers, whose reach and violence marred the former president's last months in office.
"Mexico will win this war, and I'm sure Felipe Calderón will continue to make this his No. 1 priority," Mr. Fox said, referring to his successor.
He applauded Mr. Calderón's decision to extradite about 20 top capos to the U.S. and his decision to send the military into eight of Mexico's 31 states to crack down on the drug trade. But Mr. Fox also cautioned that dark days lie ahead for the nation as drug corruption continues to permeate public institutions, including the military, said Ms. Borja and others who attended his luncheon meeting.
Mr. Fox criticized Mr. Calderón's electoral opponent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution. Upon losing the election, Mr. López Obrador and his supporters brought the nation's capital to a virtual standstill, blockading the city's main artery.
Asked by a student why he didn't use force to dislodge the protesters, Mr. Fox said he decided to respect the democratic process, and he praised Mexican institutions, particularly the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, for keeping the country together.
But because of Mr. López Obrador, Mr. Fox said, institutions will have to be rebuilt. "I think it was very bad what happened in Mexico," he said. It was "awful, very bad for a man that lost the election to blame the IFE. That's not fair."
Mr. Fox called on the Bush administration to withdraw from Iraq and said immigration remains the top bilateral U.S.-Mexico issue. In a speech to a packed house at SMU's McFarlin Auditorium on Tuesday night, Mr. Fox called for an overhaul of immigration law. He criticized the Bush administration for building walls instead of using that money to help create jobs for both Mexicans and Central Americans.
"I don't understand this policy of building walls between two countries that have been friends, that have been neighbors," he said. "I don't understand the idea of separating people. ... If you construct walls, you are limiting your future. ... It didn't work in China, and it didn't work in Berlin."
acorchado@dallasnews.com |
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