| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Calderón Calls for Common Front to Restore Security
 Suzanne Stephens Waller - Presidencia de la República
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August 26, 2010
Mexico City - President Felipe Calderón urged the country’s mayors to create a single, more solid front that will provide Mexico with honest, professional police, capable of restoring security above any other interests.
“It is quite clear that we need to provide a forceful, unified response to crime, and create a single front, comprising not only federal, state and municipal governments, not only the executive, legislative and judicial branches but also society and government, the media, social leaders and associations,” he said.
During the Dialogue for Security: Towards a State Policy, this time with mayors, the President said that it is important to standardize the police force through reliability tests, and unify the criteria for the selection, recruitment and permanence of the most valuable officers by guaranteeing better working conditions, restructuring command chains and instituting coordination mechanisms, in order to facilitate strategic, effective police deployment.
“And we propose to have a new police model by year-end. Why? Because the one we have is not working," he explained.
At Campo Militar Marte, the President said that an institutional weakness can be perceived in the municipalities, since over 400 of them lack their own security corps while nearly 90% of those that do have police have fewer than 100 officers.
“In short, the various restrictions of the municipalities on effectively dealing with crime force us to seek alternatives to protect citizens' security. In Federal Government, we are open to all proposals and to evaluating them. We must find the way to support the municipalities' work and offer Mexicans the peace they so long for," he said.
President Calderón added that a single police command, a proposal submitted by various governors within CONAGO and during the Dialogue for Security, will not threaten municipal autonomy. On the contrary, this is lost when criminals rather than mayors govern.
"Losing municipal autonomy does not mean losing the command of police forces to state coordination but losing it to the criminals that control the area and who are obeyed instead of you. That is what losing municipal autonomy involves.
And losing municipal autonomy also means handing it to the citizens you govern, who elected you and trusted you. They will decide you they charge and who they do not," he said.
Accompanied by Secretaries of the Interior and Public Security, Francisco Blake Mora and Genero García Luna respectively and Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez, the President recalled Edelmiro Cavazos Leal, Mayor of Santiago, Nuevo León, who was kidnapped and murdered last week, and called for a moment of silence for him and other mayors who lost their lives at the hands of criminals.
“The death of Edelmiro Cavazos, a brave man devoted to his community, has shaken the country once again. In the memory of him and all the mayors in Mexico who have died at the hands of the criminals operating in this country and of the police that have been sacrificed in the call of duty, I would ask you all to observe a minute of silence," he said.
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