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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2007 
Calderon: Threats Won't End Drug Crackdown
 Associated Press
| | Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, right, speaks to Associated Press reporters Eduardo Castillo and Traci Carl on board of the presidential airplane while on route to Chiapas, Mexico, Saturday, March 10, 2007. President Calderon said the threats his government has received from drug traffickers won't stop its nearly nationwide military crackdown, and he called on the United States to do more to battle drugs within its own borders. (AP/Office of the Mexican Presidency) |
Mexico City - Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Saturday that drug traffickers' threats against his government would not stop a military crackdown against them, and he demanded that the United States do more to fight the sale and consumption of drugs domestically.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press aboard his presidential plane, Calderon said he would push President Bush to respect migrant rights and do more against drugs in the U.S. when the two meet on Tuesday in the colonial city of Merida, Mexico.
"We are, at the end of the day, putting our lives on the line in this battle, and the United States has to come up with something that is more than symbolic gestures, much more," Calderon said.
Calderon said members of the federal government have received threats from traffickers.
"There have been a lot of threats _ whether they have been false or real _ but they won't stop us from taking action," he said, returning from a visit to southern Chiapas state, where he celebrated his first 100 days in office.
Since taking office on Dec. 1, Calderon has sent thousands of troops and federal police to areas controlled by drug traffickers, including Mexican cities along the U.S. border, his home state of Michoacan, and the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
He also began extraditing major drug lords to face justice north of the border, something that the United States had urged Mexico to do for years.
Those actions were aimed at halting bloody turf war between cartels.
Calderon said that so far, the crackdown has allowed the Mexican government to retake control of several cities and return "basic levels of security" to those who live there.
He welcomed Bush's visit to Latin America and urged the U.S. leader to make the region a priority once again, after immigration reform and other important issues for Mexico took a back seat to security in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"There's a Mexican saying, 'better late than never'," Calderon said. |
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