Jose Manuel Mireles, leader of Michoacan's
community police force,
stands with other vigilantes late last year. With what approaches
a full-scale war between drug traffickers
and armed citizen groups,
the Mexico government
has a major problem on
its hands.
U.S. 'Interference' in Michoacan is
the Last Thing Mexico Needs (La Jornada, Mexico)
"Proposing U.S. government assistance for addressing the Michoacan conflict is disturbing in light of the past
collaboration between the U.S. and Mexican governments. ... The unacceptable transfer of sovereignty carried out by the previous administration under the pretext of a war against drug trafficking led to almost complete dependency on Washington in terms of security, intelligence, and foreign policy. Yet this failed to result in reduced levels of criminal violence in our country."
A member of the community police of Michoacan, a vigilante group, in the home of the leader of the Knights Templar drug cartel [Caballeros Templarios], in Nueva Italia, Jan. 16. The raging drug conflict in the Mexican state has led to a loss of governance, with vigilate groups and drug cartels opposing one another and the government largely sidelined.
According
to information released Jan. 15 by Germany's DPA News Agency, a senior U.S.
State Department official remarked that the violence and loss of governance in Michoacan is "extremely worrisome," and characterized
the situation as one of "communities that were already under pressure from
drug traffickers and criminal gangs now caught in a battle between those who
claim they are protecting them, and those using them for their
own interests." She also said that the citizens affected fail to receive
the necessary support from the central or local governments. Moreover, the official
also said that the United States stands ready to provide assistance to the
Mexican government in terms of the security operation undertaken few days ago
by federal forces in the state.
Without
denying the gravity of the events occurring on the territory of Michoacan and the type of problems they present for governing
the region and country, the statements of this official are unwelcomed and
irrelevant, to the extent that the situation she described is an internal
affair of Mexico, and the solution exclusively for Mexicans. There is no reason
for a foreign authority to in any way address the issue or to state its opinions
on the situation.
Moreover,
proposing U.S. government assistance for addressing the Michoacan
conflict is disturbing in light of the past collaboration between the U.S. and
Mexican governments. Those operations resulted in the subordination of Mexico
to the United States, and the adoption by authorities in our neighboring
country of security functions that correspond exclusively to domestic ones.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
So
it was during the six-year term of Felipe Calderon, in the context of
the Merida
Initiative: the unacceptable transfer of sovereignty carried out by the previous
administration under the pretext of a war against drug trafficking led to almost
complete dependency on Washington in terms of security, intelligence, and
foreign policy. Yet this failed to result in reduced levels of criminal violence
in our country, as evidenced by the clashes between suspected drug dealers and self-defense
groups in Michoacan. By contrast, U.S. involvement in the above-mentioned areas
resulted in more violence and a spiraling loss of social peace and governance.
It also exposed Washington as an unreliable and unscrupulous ally, capable of
providing military resources to criminal organizations it was allegedly combating,
as it was with operations Fast and Furious
and Wide
Receiver.
The
emergency of the insecurity and lawlessness that exists in Michoacan
is a problem that requires the recovery of territorial control by the state,
and the restoration of law and order in the areas it has been lost. A first
step is for federal authorities to avoid repeating the mistakes made by their
predecessors in office, i.e., tolerating and encouraging the intervention of
Washington, which as a rule is disguised as military and police assistance that
begins, as it did on January 15, in the form of statements by an anonymous State
Department source.
