Former President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa from the National Action Party (PAN) answered critics on his terms in office, specifically the war own drugs conducted during his presidency.
Calderón Hinojosa stated that to think that violence and insecurity in Mexico is only a matter of drugs, one that would solve itself by no longer fighting criminals, would be a flawed diagnosis of the existing problems. This statement came after Interior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong pointed out that the war on drugs has issued from a bad analysis.
The PAN politician explained that the version of the Interior Secretary came in the context of drug legalization, a theme that requires a comprehensive policy. He added that the situation went beyond the current violence, given Mexico’s severe problem with organized crime, and that another flawed diagnosis was to suppose that violence brakes out due to the actions of the state.
Osorio Chong had declared that the war against drug trafficking began with a misdirected concept and a poorly designed strategy, which caused an unprecedented escalation in confrontation and deaths.
During his participation in the Forum on the National Debate on Marijuana Use, the Interior Secretary pointed out that drug use had gone up in Mexico and the heavy price paid with the wrongly named war on drugs.
PAN OFFICIALS OPPOSE SECRETARY’S STATEMENT
PAN senators qualified the statements by Interior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong as “nonsense”, “imprecise” and “belated”, in response to his assertion that the war on drugs during the former presidential term has increased violence in the country and stemmed from a poor analysis and strategy.
PAN legislator Javier Lozano stated that not only did the statement come belatedly, moreover the supposed “better” strategy of the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) was there for all to see, with no improvement in matters of security despite their assertion of using less weapons and more “intelligence”.
Héctor Larios, also from the PAN, considered it was nonsense to blame Felipe Calderón’s administration after he confronted organized crime directly, underlining that murders have increased under the current administration.
For his part, Fernando Yunes asserted that the government of Calderón Hinojosa based its combat against crime on intelligence analysis, which made Osorio Chong’s comments “imprecise”.
ESTEBAN BATORY
