US ambassador says Mexico 'closed the doors' on security cooperation and denies its violence problem

MEXICO CITY — U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar lashed out Wednesday at Mexico’s failure to accept aid in the fight against drug cartels, claiming the country “closed the doors” on security cooperation.

In a press conference, Salazar launched his harshest criticism yet of rampant violence, police corruption and the Mexican government’s mistaken attitude that “there is no problem.”

“When they just say ‘there is no problem, we have these statistics to show people there is no problem,’ that is not based on reality,”“ Salazar said. “There is a very big problem.”

Mexico sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. embassy “expressing its surprise” at Salazar's statement, the foreign relations ministry said in a statement later Wednesday.

Salazar cited violence in recent days in the northern state of Sinaloa as an example. Sinaloa state police chief Gerardo Mérida said Wednesday authorities found a pile of between five and seven bodies on a roadside there, but were still counting body parts to see how many there were.

“There is a pile of various bodies, with what we have found we have identified five bodies, but some are in pieces, they have been dismembered, there are mentions of seven,” said Mérida.

Sinaloa's embattled governor, Ruben Rocha, seemed to typify Mexico's attitude when he said Tuesday —after a similar number of dead bodies were dumped on roadsides - that “we're doing well, we'll get over this soon.”

Salazar countered that in Sinaloa “the dead can be seen everywhere.”

Salazar had previously defended many of the Mexican government’s actions, but he now says former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of not confronting the cartels “did not work.”

López Obrador left office on Sept. 30, but his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, has pledged to continue the policy, even though under her leadership troops appear more willing to open fire.

Fighting between two factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel broke out after two drug capos — one from each faction — flew to the United States and were arrested there on July 25.

Drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were apprehended in the United States after flying there in a small plane.

Zambada later claimed he was kidnapped and forced aboard the plane by Guzmán López, causing a violent battle between Zambada’s faction and the “Chapitos” group led by the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Mexico later blamed the United States for detaining the capos, saying that had caused the outbreak of violence. Salazar said Mexico also shut down anti-drug cooperation after that.

“It totally accelerated from there, the Mexican government closed its doors,” Salazar said. The ambassador also criticized efforts by both López Obrador and Sheinbaum to downplay the problem of crime and violence, claiming the problem was being exaggerated and crime statistics were dropping.

Salazar did not clarify why he thought the Mexican government's numbers were untrustworthy, but in recent days the government appears to have changed the way it reports homicide figures.

“The reality for the Mexican people, and that is for businesspeople, members of the press like you who work on the streets, those who have ranches, like the cattleman killed in Sinaloa over the weekend because he was a leader, they don't live with security,” Salazar said.

The continuing violence “is a very serious problem in Mexico and saying there is no problem, blaming someone else, blaming the United States, obviously is not (the solution)", he continued.

He also blamed López Obrador for having refused “$32 million," an apparent reference to López Obrador's decision to drop out of a U.S.-funded program to donate money to train and equip Mexican police.

“It was rejected for ideological problems, and other explanations,” Salazar said. López Obrador said at the time he didn't want U.S. helicopters and guns, but by that point most of the U.S. money was going for training, professionalization and legal reform.

After taking office in 2018, López Obrador also cut funding for police forces and gave the army, navy and militarized National Guard the lead role in law enforcement.

“Police become corrupt because they don't earn enough to live on,” Salazar said. “You cannot pay a police officer almost nothing and expect them to do their job.”

Salazar had been previously known for defending López Obrador despite his constant efforts to militarize law enforcement, concentrate power, eliminate regulatory and oversight bodies and shore up Mexico's government-run companies even at the expense of U.S. firms.

It was unclear if Wednesday's critical turn in his rhetoric was in any way related to the victory of Donald Trump in last week's U.S. presidential elections. Trump has long been fiercely critical of Mexico.

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