Interior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong stated today that in some Mexican states security conditions are now stable, due to which in the following months the withdrawal of Army and Navy personnel will be announced.
Despite not officially confirming which states were being considered, the Secretary mentioned that progress in terms of security had been made in Michoacán, Durango, Nuevo León and Chihuahua.
FEDERAL FORCES TO REMAIN IN GUERRERO
Osorio Chong spoke yesterday on the situation in Guerrero, where Federal forces will continue bringing security to areas with the highest levels of crime.
The Secretary asserted that despite homicide figures not having grown, rates must now go down, wether these are derived from confrontation with organized crime or not.
“The strategy is to move forward to diminish crime, as homicide figures reflects that we are practically within the same figures, some weeks more or less, but mostly the same figures as other years”, he stated.
NATIONAL ACTION PARTY OPPOSES WITHDRAWAL STRATEGY
The National Actions Party’s (PAN) parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies accused the government yesterday of having “relaxed” the fight against organized crime.
Jorge López Martín, spokesman of the PAN group underlined that, according to the National Defense Secretariat, until now Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration has only seized 63 aircrafts used for transporting drugs, which represents barely 20 percent of what was accomplished during the administration of former President Felipe Calderón from the PAN.
He stated that the figures indicate that the current federal government has relaxed its fight against organized crime, which is inadmissible, because it implies that the supposed strategy has turned out to be a deception and a fraud.
What we are seeing with all clarity is that there is a relaxation on the part of the federal government in its fight against organized crime. We urge the federal government to leave behind its speeches and to take action so that the population is guaranteed the security that it required in the streets, the neighborhoods and public space.”
-Jorge López Martín, National Action Party Deputy.
In this sense, the member of the PAN said that Interior Secretary Osorio Chong’s announcement of the withdrawal of troops from some states of the country was wrong and confusing.
He accused the official of making “optimistic figures”, because no positive results of the fight against organized crime could be seen for now.
WITH INFORMATION FROM YVONNE REYES AND CARMEN GUDIÑO
