Whack-a-mole: Mexico was in danger of being held hostage: Felipe Calderon

The mole whacker in-chief of Mexico gives his point of view. A number of Mexicans friends of this editor pretty much feel that they are being "held hostage," both by the cartels and by President Calderon and his government. 

Original El Universal article in Spanish

President Felipe Calderón warned that if he had not acted against crime from the start of his term in 2006, the government today would probably be an absolute hostage to crime.

"There was a problem of the growing existence and impunity of criminal groups in 2006 , which was about to burst, and it did burst. And that would have generated violence with or without government intervention, with the difference that if we had not intervened probably the government right now would be entirely, either subject to, or would be held hostage by criminal groups" he said in an interview with Ezra Shabot on MVS radio.

He rejected the idea held by those who say that it would have been a better idea not to take action against crime and thus the wave of murders would not have occured, the sum of which already exceeds 30 000 deaths.

“These 30 thousand people are not victims of society; they are victims of criminals. These are deaths caused by criminals, who are to be fought. And it seems to me that if we don’t fight, there will be many more," he said. "The fallacy is thinking that nothing is going to happen. This is a kind of solution which has already completely failed. For example, this conflict explains the terrible carnage in Juarez, between the cartel of Carrillo Leyva and that of el Chapo.
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" Now this is what I see. Violence is not the product of government intervention. In contrast, government intervention occurs because of rising levels of violence in Ciudad Juárez. It's the reverse.

"Or the confrontation between the Zetas and the Gulf. It is a confrontation of criminals who can’t fit together. Of course, for sure, the government intervention weakens them, we generated a terrible internal instability, and that, precisely, will also generate conflict. All these factors are correlated," added Calderon in the radio interview.

"Perhaps - without making gratuitous accusations, not that I may not have any legal or judicial basis about this point, that is, the truth - but I don’t want to get into that now. But if it is a fact that what has happened in some states is a movie, then it is the movie we would have seen at the national level if we had not intervened," he added.

(AMB Editor's note: Calderon is apparently referring here to - and possibly wishing he could do something “legal” or “judicial” about - the Mexican movie, El Infierno, released this autumn, which portrays Mexico, inflamed by the drug war, as “Hell.” Fortunately, Mexican presidents aren’t what they used to be, virtually omnipotent and able to punish anyone that offended them.)