| | |  Editorials | Issues | September 2008 
Calderon: End Tolerance of Crime
 Miguel Garcia - Reuters
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| | Soldiers march during a military parade celebrating Independence Day in Mexico City September 16, 2008. (Daniel Aguilar/Reuters) | | |
Morelia, Mexico - Mexico's president called for an end to a culture of "impunity and tolerance" of crime on Wednesday after suspected drug traffickers killed seven people in a grenade attack during independence day celebrations.
Two almost simultaneous grenade attacks ripped through the crowded center of the colonial town of Morelia on Monday night during a national holiday. Authorities pinned the blame on powerful and increasingly violent drug cartels.
"If they were aiming to intimidate us or hold us back, they made a mistake. The blood that has been spilled on this plaza ... is a powerful reason for us to stand strong," said President Felipe Calderon at the scene of the explosion.
The president laid a memorial wreath of flowers in Morelia's central square - patrolled by heavily armed soldiers - and visited some of the dozens of wounded people, including several children, who remained hospitalized with burns and fractures.
Authorities revised the death toll from the explosion to seven, from eight previously.
"This is the moment to put a full stop to the culture of tolerance, to complicity and impunity for crimes. I hope that every Mexican joins the struggle against these enemies of the state," Calderon said in an earlier speech.
"It is a mistake to assume that tolerating them we can live in peace," he said before heading to Morelia.
The governor of the western state Michoacan blamed drug gangs for the attack. But state prosecutors said it was too early to know who was responsible.
Mexican media speculated the attack was linked to a turf war between the Sinaloa cartel, headed by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, and a local gang.
Calderon, originally from Michoacan, deployed the first of thousands of troops to the state at the beginning of his term in 2006 to fight drug traffickers.
But his efforts have been stifled by widespread corruption in Mexico's security forces. Policemen are often arrested for links to cartels or kidnapping rings.
(Reporting by Miguel Garcia in Morelia and Miguel Angel Gutierrez in Mexico City, writing by Mica Rosenberg) |
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