Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has rejected calls for the United States military to intervene to stem drug cartel violence in Mexico, saying such a move would violate the country’s sovereignty.
During a news conference Lopez Obrador said his government was “not going to permit any foreign government to intervene in our territory, much less that a government’s armed forces intervene”.
“In addition to being irresponsible, it is an offence to the people of Mexico,” he said, adding that Mexico “does not take orders from anyone”.
On Wednesday, Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw released a message in Spanish asking Lopez Obrador why he opposed a proposal the congressman introduced in January, authorising US military force to target drug cartels in Mexico.
“The cartels are war with us — poisoning more than 80,000 Americans with fentanyl every year, creating a crisis at our border, and turning Mexico into a failed narco-state,” Crenshaw said in a statement on January 12 about the proposed legislation.
“It’s time we directly target them. My legislation will put us at war with the cartels by authorizing the use of military force against the cartels. We cannot allow heavily armed and deadly cartels to destabilize Mexico and import people and drugs into the United States.”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Monday also said in a Fox News interview that it was time to “put Mexico on notice”. He advocated introducing legislation to classify some Mexican drug cartels as “foreign terrorist groups”.
The four Americans were hauled off in a pick-up truck after “unidentified gunmen fired upon” their vehicle, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in a statement at the weekend. “All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men.”
A Mexican citizen was killed in the incident, which took place as drug cartel factions tore through the streets, Tamaulipas Governor Americo Villarreal said. The US citizens had crossed into the northeastern Mexican city of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, for a medical procedure. The city, however, has been beset by violence linked to drug trafficking and other organised crime.
Mexican authorities frantically searched as the cartel moved the four Americans around, even taking them to a medical clinic, “to create confusion and avoid efforts to rescue them”, the region’s governor said.—INP
