09/09/10 – This past Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with journalists and members of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.; during the Q&A session that took place following her address, Mrs. Clinton spoke of the current events taking place in México and how the United States is working with México to help combat organized crime.
Mrs. Clinton acknowledged the increasing violence in México by citing recent car bombings and comparing México to Colombia during the late-1980’s. She believes that “[it will take] a combination of improved institutional capacity and better law enforcement and, where appropriate, military support… to be able to prevent this from spreading and to try and beat it back,” she added, “México has capacity, and they’re using that capacity, and they’ve been very willing to take advice.”
According to Mrs. Clinton, the U.S. is also beginning to put more focus on smaller countries in Central America that do not have the capacity that México currently has. She also mentioned of efforts being made to improve countries in the Caribbean by briefly mentioning the Carribean Basin Security Initiative and grants that are “ways of bolstering economies and governments to improve rule of law.”
Her comparison of México and Colombia drew large criticism and prompted U.S. President Barack Obama to retract Mrs. Clinton’s comment during an interview with the newspaper La Opinion, “México is an ample and progressive democracy, with a growing economy and because of that you can’t compare what is happening to México with what happened in Colombia 20 years ago.”
Sources:
Cádiz, Antonieta. “Entrevista exclusiva con Presidente Obama.” La Opinion. 08 September, 2010.
