Mexico's President Felipe Calderón on the Safety of Mexico
While on the “Royal Tour” of Mexico with Peter Greenberg, Arnie Weissmann of Travel Weekly was able to interview Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderón, about the safety of Mexico. Below are some of President Calderón’s stand-out quotes from the interview:
- “Most of the troubles we have are with gangs fighting other gangs. They are not attacking or disturbing tourists.”
- “Mexico has more than 2,500 municipalities, and 80% of the problems are focused in 80 municipalities. Consider the rate of homicides per 100,000 people. Mexico has about 15 homicides per 100,000 people. Jamaica has about 60. Guatemala and El Salvador are closer to 70.”
- “Some cities in United States, like Washington, D.C., Baltimore and New Orleans, have more homicides per 100,000 people than Mexico; Atlanta is about the same. And there are states in Mexico — Yucatan, Campeche, Tlaxcala, Queretaro and even Quintana Roo — that are as safe as many regions in Europe.”
- “In addition to our policy fighting criminals, we are improving the institutional conditions of the police and attorney general offices in the whole country, and we are paying special attention to those areas that people visit the most.”
- “Ciudad Juarez has a problem, and we are dealing with that.”
- “In general, tourist arrivals from other countries grew more than America, on average, with the exception of some European countries, though that is probably more related to their economic situation than anything else. Canadians increased about 25% from 2009 to 2010, and Brazil grew about 94%. But even tourism from America grew about 15%.”
- “I’m trying to bring my kids to all those places unique to Mexico. For me, that includes the amazing phenomenon of migration of animals: the monarch butterflies in Michoacan and Estado de Mexico or the whales in Baja California Sur.”
- “The government’s effort is not exactly a war on drugs in the old sense, like the American war on drugs coming from President Reagan. We are fighting any kind of expression of organized crime in Mexico, not only those related to drugs.”
- “Our purpose is to restore the authority and to re-establish in Mexico strong institutional frameworks in order to enforce the laws. Our main goal is to make Mexico a rule-of-law state, where the law is enforced and anyone — visitors or citizens — will live in order, following the law, with a strong government supporting and defending the rights for everyone.”
The full interview can be found at Travel Weekly
