President
Felipe Calderon: Has his last year in office
opened
the verbal floodgates?
El Universal, Venezuela
Calderon Says U.S.
Diplomats 'Exaggerate;' U.S. Agencies 'Lack Coordination'
"They
[U.S. diplomats] always want to raise their own agendas with their own bosses,
and they've done a lot of damage with the stories they tell, because the truth
is, they distort … if there
is a lack of coordination among security agencies, it is in the United States.
… The truth is that they don't coordinate with each other - they
are competitors."
The guns, drugs and money keep on flowing: Julian Zapata Espinoza, also known as 'El Piolín' of the Los Zetas cartel, arrested in connection with the killing of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata last week, Feb. 23.
Mexico City: In regard to U.S.
security agencies, President Felipe Calderon said in an interview published
today by El Universal of Mexico, "Yes there is a lack of
coordination," and the Mexican has no response to a U.S. diplomatic cable disclosed
last December by WikiLeaks.
The chief of state said that
in these cables, "(U.S.) ambassadors or who wrote about him in the cables pour
lots of sour cream on their tacos (they exaggerate). They always want to raise
their own agendas with their own bosses, and they've done a lot of damage with
the stories they tell, because the truth is, they distort,'" the president
said.
The leaked cables allegedly
reveal that a former senior Mexican official, during a meeting with
representatives of the U.S. Attorney General in October 2009, hinted that due
to drug trafficking, the government had lost control over certain parts of the
country.
Another cable, signed by
current U.S ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, reveals Washington's lack of
confidence in its neighbor to effectively combat drug trafficking due to the rivalry
and lack of coordination between security agencies, "generalized"
official corruption and an incapacity on the part of the Army to collect
evidence incriminating the people it arrests.
"The (cables) that spoke of the lack of
coordination between different agencies. I don't have to tell U.S. ambassadors how
many times I meet with the Security Cabinet or what I say. The truth is that it's none of their
business," Calderon asserted to the Mexican newspaper.
"I don't
accept nor tolerate any kind of intervention," he said.
"The ignorance of the
gentleman translates into a distortion of what is occurring in Mexico that has
had an impact and irritates our team," Calderon said, in an apparent
reference to the ambassador from the United States.
According to the president, "if there is a
lack of coordination among security agencies, it is in the United States."
"We see that the DEA,
the CIA, and ICE (U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement) always have a policy of
passing the buck without getting results. The truth is that they don't
coordinate with each other - they are competitors."
For the Mexican president, cooperation with the U.S. in the
fight against organized crime "turns out to be notoriously
insufficient."
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
The authorities in the United
States must cooperate, "in reducing the consumption of drugs," but
"they haven't reduced it." And secondly, they have to "stop the
flow of arms," but they "haven't reduced it;" instead "it
has increased," he said.
On the other hand, the president criticized the
lack of responsibility on the part of some of the 32 states of Mexico in the
fight against organized crime, which prefer to "throw the ball (the responsibility)
to the president of the republic" than do the work they are supposed to do.
The president, who ends his term in December,
2012, confessed that, "I would like to be remembered as a president who
transformed Mexico; a president who initiated lots of turning points; a
president who achieved universal health coverage; … and finally, a president who
was committed to the environment, which is my favorite subject."
However, he said that, "politics is shortsighted and
terribly unfair."
