Polémicas declaraciones de Calderón a The New York Times

¡Esta entrevista seguramente generará muchas reacciones!

El presidente Felipe Calderón afirmó en una entrevista con The New York Times (en ingles abajo)  que hay algunos priistas que comparten su política en materia de seguridad, aunque hay otros que creen que los pactos del pasado con el crimen organizado pueden funcionar.

Calderón fue cuestionado sobre el posible regreso del PRI a la Presidencia de México y por un probable pacto de éste con el crimen organizado, a lo que respondió: “Depende quién sea. Hay muchos en el PRI que están de acuerdo con la política que yo tengo, o al menos ellos lo dicen en secreto, mientras que en público ellos pudieran decir otra cosa”, manifestó.

“Hay muchos en el PRI que piensan que los arreglos del pasado podrían funcionar ahora. Yo no veo cómo pueda lograrse un arreglo, pero es una mentalidad que muchos de ellos tienen. Si esa opinión prevalece esto me preocuparía”, aseveró el Presidente al Times, publicada en su versión impresa este domingo, pero disponible desde ayer en la web.

-On the prospect that the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which dominated Mexico for decades, might return to power and fall into a corrupt relationship with organized crime.

-It depends on who it is. There are many in the PRI who agree with the policy I have, at least they say so in secret, while publicly they may say something else. There are many in the PRI who think the deals of the past would work now. I don’t see what deal could be done, but that is the mentality many of them have. If that opinion prevails it would worry me.

Felipe Calderón le concedió la entrevista a los tres corresponsales del diario en México - Randal C. Archibold, Damien Cave and Elisabeth Malkin- y fue presentada ayer en su portal de internet, Calderón

A decir del artículo del Times el Presidente Calderón no pudo afirmar que México era más seguro en su mandato, pero sí que sus esfuerzos lograrán que así lo sea en el futuro. "Lo que puedo decir es que México será más seguro...y que de no haber actuado se hubiera deteriorado aún más", respondió Calderón en el artículo del Times que apareció en la página 6A.

Cuestionado por los reporteros sobre qué cosas hubiera cambado de su estrategia, Calderón respondió que él hubiera sido aún más agresivo para reconstruir las policías locales desde el inicio.

"Lo hubiéramos hecho de una manera más agresiva, mucho más determinada al comenzar", dijo.

Dentro de los extractos de la conversación con Calderón, hecha en español, pero traducidos y condensados al inglés por el NYT, reveló que las fuerzas armadas mexicanas han estado muy cerca de capturar al líder del Cártel de Sinaloa, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán durante su mandato.

A la pregunta sobre si cree que será recordado por la creciente violencia desatada durante su mandato derivada del combate a la criminalidad, Calderón aseguró que sin duda habrá personas que lo quieran recordar así.

"Es posible que algunos me recuerden por eso (el alza en la violencia) o quisieran que se me recordará por eso. Pero si México triunfa, como estoy seguro que lo hará, si México tiene nuevas instituciones en el futuro, si México somete a los criminales, si México reconstruye su tejido social también habrá aquellos que me recuerden como el Presidente que se atrevió a atacar a los criminales e indicar el largo camino de reconstrucción institucional del País", sentenció Calderón.

El texto tal y como se difundió en la web.

October 15, 2011

Excerpts From an Interview With President Felipe Calderón

The following are excerpts from an interview of President Felipe Calderón by The New York Times, as recorded, translated and condensed by The Times:
On the hunt for Joaquín Guzmán, the most-wanted drug lord, known as El Chapo, who has eluded capture since escaping from prison in Mexico in 2001.
The Mexican Army probably a couple of times has been in the place where hours before Chapo was. But sooner or later he will fall as well as other leaders.

-On decriminalization and whether his call for “market alternatives” to curb drug organizations’ profits is a step toward that.
-I think the responsibility of policy makers in the United States or members of Congress is to explore all alternatives that may allow the flow of money to be reduced. They come and tell me they have a policy to keep young people away from drugs, and what I see are all the stereotypical examples. From Michael Phelps, an Olympic champion, smoking marijuana, to the most admired American actors happily smoking marijuana and cocaine on screen. Instead of warning about the health risks of taking drugs, there is powerful lobby to declare that marijuana is medicinal and that makes young people think it is good.

-On the reduced flow of migration to the United States and its impact.
-I hope it changes the perception there is about us, because as you have published, as studies by Princeton and other universities have demonstrated, the net migration rate has been reduced not only to its lowest level, but nearly to zero. And I admit, it’s not only because of the opportunities that we’ve generated, but perhaps also as a result of migration policy, of the economic crisis, of fear of organized crime, but also because of the hospitals, the more than 1,000 hospitals and clinics we’ve created, the 800,000 jobs that we’re generating annually, the universities we’ve built that I already mentioned, nearly 100 new ones, and as you write in that very good article, young adults now have opportunities they didn’t have before. I hope this changes the prejudice which nearly borders on fanaticism, that Mexicans are harming the United States economy or its society. Not even before, when migration was higher.

-On the closing wage gap between Mexico and China.
-I don’t think that the wage differential, the reduction in the wage differential between China -and Mexico, is necessarily damaging. It has also signified a decrease in China’s competitiveness in Mexico’s favor. Many companies which left to China are now trying to establish themselves in Mexico, and it’s not to build up, because salaries in China, in spite of the decrease in the wage differential, are still substantially lower. I would say in some cases, even inhumane. Salaries in Mexico are still higher, however, be it because of elevated transportation costs as a result of the price of fuel, or be it, also, because of the rise in real competitiveness in Mexico. Today, it is much more profitable to invest in Mexico, and that is our alternative for the future.
-On whether he will be remembered for the surging violence in Mexico.
-It’s possible some will remember me for that or will want me to be remembered for that. But if Mexico triumphs as I am sure it will, if Mexico has new institutions in the future, if Mexico subdues the criminals, if Mexico reconstructs its social fabric there will also be those that remember me as the president who dared to take on the criminals and indicate the long path of institutional reconstruction of the country.

-On the prospect that the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which dominated Mexico for decades, might return to power and fall into a corrupt relationship with organized crime.
-It depends on who it is. There are many in the PRI who agree with the policy I have, at least they say so in secret, while publicly they may say something else. There are many in the PRI who think the deals of the past would work now. I don’t see what deal could be done, but that is the mentality many of them have. If that opinion prevails it would worry me.

-On his hopes that his reforms will outlast his presidency.
-Building a new legal framework, a new legal scaffolding is what will allow the security strategy to become state policy and not an issue for this president and not another.
On delays in reworking the economy and attracting more foreign investment.
Have we done enough? Of course not. What Mexico needs are structural reforms. Although those don’t just depend on the president. We have a Congress in which the parties or the party that has a majority — for all it presents itself as modernizing in the world — is still terribly obsolete in economic terms. The possibilities of opening up energy have been closed off. The possibilities of a labor reform have been closed off. Well, I think that economic modernity should be reflected in deeds rather than speeches.

**

Mexico’s President Works to Lock In Drug War Tactics

This article is by Randal C. Archibold, Damien Cave and Elisabeth Malkin.

MEXICO CITY — As the twilight of his presidency sets in, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico is striving to lock in the militarized approach to drug cartels that has defined his tenure, pushing aside public doubts and pressing lawmakers to adopt strategies he hopes will outlast him.

Mr. Calderón has recently stepped up calls for Mexico’s Congress to approve stalled initiatives to remake state and local police forces, codify the military’s role in fighting crime and broaden its powers, toughen the federal penal code and tighten laws to stop money laundering.

At this pivotal point, with violence swelling and presumptive candidates jockeying for position ahead of Mexico’s presidential election in July, Mr. Calderón has limited time to make the case that his strategy has worked.

He insists that the country will eventually become more secure, although about 40,000 people have been killed since he declared his war against organized crime. He began waging it shortly after taking office in 2006 as violence climbed, and he has continued pressing his offensive against drug organizations as they have splintered and descended into bloody infighting over territory and criminal rackets.

But in a wide-ranging interview, he could not say that his approach had made Mexico safer.

“What I can say is Mexico will be safer,” he said, “and to have not acted, it would have deteriorated much more.”

It is a nuanced, difficult argument to make as his party, the right-of-center National Action Party, faces the real prospect of losing the presidency, raising the question of whether Mr. Calderón’s approach will continue after his six-year term ends next year. Term limits prevent him from running again.

The killings in Mexico have reached such a point, analysts say, that no matter who wins the election, there will be intense pressure for a new course to somehow ease the violence without giving in to the cartels. The new president will also face demands from the United States, which has invested heavily in personnel, equipment and expertise and whose political leaders worry about the growing reach of transnational gangs.

“There seems to be a growing consensus that there needs to be a more refined strategy, a more targeted strategy, a more nuanced strategy,” said Eric Olson, a senior associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “It’s anybody’s guess what that will be.”

The inability to control the violence, with fresh horrors nearly every week, has rattled even some admirers in the United States Congress, who have begun to question publicly whether Mr. Calderón’s strategy — supported by the $1.4 billion in anticrime aid the United States is providing through the multiyear Merida Initiative — is making progress.

“I admire him for taking them head on, which is a very dangerous thing to do,” said Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security. “He is the first president to confront the problem and do something about it. But has it been 100 percent successful? Not at all. It seems to keep getting worse.”

The Obama administration, too, while consistently praising Mr. Calderón for taking on the cartels and making some gains against its leaders, has remained concerned about the violence, the spread of Mexican drug gangs into Central America, and the slow pace of strengthening law enforcement and judicial institutions.

“Mexico’s military and police still struggle to break the trafficking organizations or contain criminal violence,” Philip S. Goldberg, an assistant secretary of state, testified in a House hearing on Thursday. He also said that “rising violence is taking a toll on public perceptions of the government’s ability to defeat the trafficking organizations.”

As he took stock of his presidency, Mr. Calderón emphasized what he considered his triumphs, including creating jobs, expanding health care, arresting or killing more than two dozen cartel leaders, and pushing efforts to build trustworthy police and judicial institutions, as well as social programs to fight the root causes of crime.

Still, coming close to self-criticism for someone who has typically blamed the United States or Mexican lawmakers for what goes wrong, Mr. Calderón said he would have shored up state and local police forces that were now overwhelmed as well as hobbled by inexperience, lack of training, incompetence and corruption.

“We would have done it in a more aggressive, much more determined way from the start,” he said.

No doubt, especially outside Mexico, Mr. Calderón, whom American officials credit for raising cooperation with United States law enforcement agencies to extraordinary levels, has won praise for taking on the fight and steering the Mexican economy through the global financial crisis.

“He has done amazing things for Mexico,” said Susan Segal, president of the Americas Society in New York, which gave Mr. Calderón an award last month to a standing ovation. “Mexico has some of the best economic management in the world, and this is the first time Mexico has taken on a lot of really bad people.”

But back at home his approval among voters, 53 percent, according to a recent poll, has fallen to a point lower than the ratings for any recent Mexican president at this point in the six-year term.

“He has not been able, maybe because it has been very difficult to impossible, to explain to Mexicans why the security fight is worth fighting,” said Luis de la Calle, Mexico’s under secretary for international trade from 1999 to 2002.

 (Page 2 of 2)

While Mr. Calderón is barred by law from publicly endorsing a candidate, associates have said he favors his former finance minister, Ernesto Cordero, who has suggested keeping the current public security minister in his cabinet and promises to continue the administration’s economic policies. But Mr. Cordero trails most of the other candidates.

Instead, the party that dominated Mexico for 70 years, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, could well return to the presidency, invoking a time when criminal organizations and government officials kept the peace but corroded the political system. The party’s presumed front-runner for the nomination, Enrique Peña Nieto, leads most polls significantly, though political analysts caution against giving that too much weight so early in the process.

Mr. Calderón looked disgusted at the mere mention of the PRI. When told that Mr. Peña Nieto had criticized the deployment of the military in a recent BBC interview, saying it showed a lack of planning, Mr. Calderón scoffed.

“Imagine me, president of Mexico, waiting 5 or 10 years” to take action “while criminals come to your house, taking advantage of people, taking governments they wanted,” he said. “It’s absurd.”

Mr. Calderón has also warned American legislators about his political rivals.

“He said the PRI candidate is going to be weak on this issue and sleep in the same bed as the cartels,” said Mr. McCaul, the Texas Republican.

Mr. Peña Nieto declined to comment, but in interviews with local news media he has not outlined a plan drastically different from Mr. Calderón’s.

That may reflect the public mood, with polls like one by the Pew Research Center conducted last spring showing that while only 45 percent think the government is making progress in its campaign against drug cartels, 83 percent support the use of the military in the crackdown.

One change Mr. Calderón has pressed for would give the president wide latitude to declare a state of emergency and suspend constitutional guarantees, provoking criticism that the plan would worsen abuses by the military.

Locking in the changes he seeks and solidifying his legacy may be difficult because Mr. Calderón, who won a narrow victory in 2006, faces a divided legislature whose members are already focusing on next year’s election. Efforts to revamp local and state police forces under a unified command have languished for months.

Mr. Calderón has toured Mexico and the United States, trumpeting economic gains, the expansion of health care to most Mexicans, and the construction of roads and hundreds of hospitals.

He has remained steadfast in his relationship with the United States, despite obvious friction. While he pushed for the ouster of the previous American ambassador, who had derided Mexican law enforcement and military agencies in diplomatic cables, he declined to criticize the United States over a program known as “Fast and Furious” in which American agents lost track of weapons they had allowed to cross into Mexico, with dozens ending up at crime scenes.

Mr. Calderón said he learned of the program just after meeting with Mr. Obama in Washington, from a newspaper account. It troubled him, he said, but lashing out at the United States would not serve Mexico’s interests.

“If I take the bait and go against President Obama, against the A.T.F.,” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “the only thing I’m doing is weakening what I know are true allies and falling into the strategy of those who are really damaging Mexico, such as gun dealers.”

All in all, Mr. Calderón said he made no apologies.

“I don’t heed what they say in the polls,” he said. “Mexico must be cleaned up, and it is up to me to do it.”