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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2008 
Calderón Says U.S. Obligated To Do More Against Drug War
 Marion - Houston Chronicle
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| | Thousands of extra troops have been deployed by Mexico to fight drugs cartels. | | |
Mexico City — The United States needs to do more to help this nation battle narcotics gangs, since police are dying in a war fueled largely by U.S. drug consumption, the country's president said this week.
“The drug-trafficking problem that has been and continues to be the principle cause of border violence comes down to one undeniable fact: The American narcotics market is the biggest in the world,” President Felipe Calderón told a meeting of U.S. and Mexican border governors in Mexico City.
Gangland violence has killed some 4,000 Mexicans since Calderón unleashed his anti-narcotics offensive in January 2007. While many of the victims are suspected of being members of the drug cartels, an increasing number are soldiers and federal police, who are on the frontlines of the drug war.
On Monday, seven federal police officers were mowed down in the violence-torn city of Culiacan by narcotics gangs armed with grenades and AK-47 assault rifles.
“While Mexican police die fighting this battle every day, the majority of the consumers are Americans,” Calderón said.
The U.S. Senate last week approved $350 million in anti-narcotics aid to Mexico under the provisions of the Merida Initiative, a multiyear, $1.4 billion program advocated by President Bush for Mexico and Central America. However, the bill conditions that aid on Mexico reining in human rights abuses by soldiers.
Calderón complained about the strings attached to the funds, Gov. Rick Perry said. He said he explained to Calderón that the bill was a federal matter. But he proposed that he and the governors of New Mexico, Arizona and California work harder to fight domestic drug consumption at the state level.
Perry said he also offered to lobby the federal government to crack down on arms smuggling into Mexico.
Mexican officials accuse Washington of turning a blind eye to the flood of illegal weapons flowing south into Mexico and into the arms of the drug gangs.
Perry said he was following the debate on the Merida Initiative. But, he said, “I'm more concerned about the results of getting an agreement where we can collaborate and fight these drug dealers and win this war that would poison our kids.”
He said the governors also discussed with their Mexican counterparts the growing reliance in the U.S. on grain-based ethanol, which is pushing up food prices in Mexico, while hitting Texas farmers. |
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