Hillary Clinton likens Mexico to Colombia as drug gangs kill mayor number 3

Published on Thursday 9 September 2010 16:05

The third Mexican mayor in a month was assassinated by drug gang hitmen yesterday, as the US secretary of state warned Mexico was "looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago".

•Clinton: Warning Image: Getty

Hillary Clinton also pointed to the drug cartels' use of car bombs, a weapon once favoured by Colombian cartels linked to guerrillas, as evidence Mexican gangs "are now showing more and more indices of insurgency."

While the Mexican government quickly condemned the killing of the mayor of El Naranjo, it rejected the comparison with Colombia, where the Medellin cartel waged war on the state, killing police, politicians and judges and civilians.

More worrying to Mexican legislators, Mrs Clinton suggested the US was looking to implement some type of "Plan Colombia" for Mexico and Central America, referring to a US anti-drug programme in which US special forces teams trained Colombian troops and US advisers worked with the military.

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Mexico has always rejected allowing US troops on its soil, except for a symbolic presence: Mexico's senate has authorised a US detachment to march in next week's bicentennial parade.

"We are not going to permit any version of a Plan Colombia," said Senator Santiago Creel, of president Felipe Calderon's National Action Party. "We cannot permit a Plan Colombia in Mexico."

Senator Ricardo Monreal of the Labour Party said US aid to Colombia hadn't stopped drug trafficking. "Whoever thinks Colombia is a cure-all, and if the US thinks it is necessary to apply the same model to us they applied to Colombia, they are mistaken," he said.

Plan Colombia has been widely credited for helping Colombia diminish the rebel threat, but critics say it has not significantly dented the drug trade.

Mrs Clinton made her statements at the Council on Foreign Relations, in Washington where she said drug cartels are "morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency in Mexico and in Central America".

She also suggested "we need to figure out what are the equivalents" for Mexico and Central America of Plan Colombia, acknowledging "there were problems and there were mistakes, but it worked."

Mexican cartels are becoming increasingly violent -- federal police this week found four bodies in a makeshift grave linked to arrested US-born drug hitman Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "La Barbie" - and are carrying out more attacks on government officials in Mexico.

Hooded gunmen burst into Mayor Alexander Lopez Garcia's office in the northern Mexico state of San Luis Potosi and shot him dead. President Calderon's office condemned the killing, calling it a "cowardly and criminal" act.On 29 August, the mayor of a town just across the state line in Tamaulipas was shot dead and his daughter wounded.

The mayor of Santiago, in the neighbouring state of Nuevo Leon, was found murdered on 18 August.