Felipe Calderón warns that Mexico could be a ‘narco-state’: “Latin America is being captured by organized crime and drug trafficking”

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderón denounced on Tuesday that “drug trafficking is turning the region into a region of narco-states,” in addition to ensuring that democracy in Mexico “has fallen,” due to the approval and subsequent entry into force of the reform to the Judicial Branch.

These statements were made in the company of the former president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, and the former president of the government of Spain, José María Aznar, who participated in a discussion panel entitled ‘EU and Latin America, what future?’, and organized by the Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies (FAES).

In his presentation, the former Mexican president assured that there is “a very serious institutional decline in Latin America,” a situation that is also happening in Mexico, comparing it with the cases of Cuba and Venezuela; he stressed that in the country democracy “has fallen.”

He denounced “the disappearance” of the independence of the judicial branch, in addition to pointing out “the capture of the state in the hands of organized crime and drug trafficking.”

Calderón Hinojosa, who served as president from 2006 to 2012, is known and remembered for starting the so-called “War on Drugs” during his term, in which at least 120 thousand deaths were recorded due to violence in Mexico, unleashed by his persecution of Mexican drug trafficking groups, using members of the Mexican Army for this.

In this regard, Marko Cortés, current national leader of the National Action Party (PAN), the party to which the former president belongs, pointed out that violence began to increase during Calderón’s term after his decision to bring the military out onto the streets, although he added that the administration of Morena president Andrés Manuel López Obrador became the most violent in recent Mexican history.

During the meeting of the Joint Committees on Constitutional Issues and Legislative Studies, the PAN senator expressed his concern about the growing militarization of security in Mexico. He criticized the current government’s change of position regarding militarization, pointing out that they previously opposed this measure and now actively promote it.

“Since the previous administration, when the decision was made to start bringing the military out onto the streets, the growing violence began, which is reflected in the increasing homicides, and these have been increasing. As Senator Ricardo Anaya has already reported here, the first spike in the growth of homicides occurred during Calderón’s administration. This is true,” he commented, after emphasizing that militarization is not the solution.

Source: infobae