Thaindian News

GUANUAJUATO, MEXICO (BNO NEWS) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has praised Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s strategy against organized crime, despite criticisms that more than 34,000 people have died in the country’s drug war.

Clinton acknowledged that the plan entails costs and lives, but there is no alternative. “We still have work to do. I’m not going to deny that. But we are making progress. And President Calderon’s very courageous leadership is one of the reasons why we are making some gains that are important,” Clinton said after meeting with Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa.

During her third visit to Mexico, Clinton endorsed the decision of the American government to continue cooperating with Mexican authorities in the war against drug cartels.

This year, the U.S. will give Calderon’s government, as part of the Mérida Initiative, $500 million in equipment and capacity building, including $60 million for non-intrusive inspection equipment that will help law enforcement and customs agents to detect illegal arms and money moving into and within Mexico.

“The United States has been willing, under President Obama, to admit that we have a responsibility for some of the very difficult transnational organized crime challenges that Mexico is dealing with. That is why it is important for us to work closely together to halt the stream of illegal weapons and cash coming in one direction and drugs going in the other direction,” Clinton added.

During the press conference, Clinton avoided referring to the revelations of Wikileaks over Mexico and the eventual removal of Ambassador Carlos Pascual due to the same subject.

Clinton also noted that Mexico needed to do more to protect human rights. “There needs to be more legislation passed, which the Calderón government is hoping to achieve. We need to make sure that any human rights violators committed by the military against civilians are tried in civilian courts, and we know that the Mexican Government is working on that,” Clinton said.

The secretary of state lastly added that drug traffickers are not going to surrender without a terrible fight and noted that they commit acts of barbarism, such as beheading people, to intimidate people.

The meeting took place at a regional museum in the colonial city of Guanajuato, while students from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Guanajuato staged a demonstration in which they called for a cessation of violence and “no more weapons” from the United States.