Fabiola Martinez
La Jornada newspaper
Friday, December 17, 2021, p. 6
US agents cannot enter Mexico to pursue alleged criminals, warned President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a day after Washington offered a $ 5 million reward for four of Joaquín’s children. El Chapo Guzmán, members of the poster from Sinaloa.
Just over two years after the military operation in which he was arrested and hours later released Ovidio Guzmán, the president said that this capture continues to be a priority for his government, and reiterated that he gave the order to release him on October 17, 2019, because it was facing an operation that was badly executed in a timely manner, understaffed
and at 3 in the afternoon, but above all with the risk that the crash would lead to more than 200 deaths in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
If we did well, if we did wrong, history will tell. I was the one who made the decision to stop the operation
, ratified yesterday at the beginning of a long morning press conference in the National Palace.
Although since Wednesday he made reference to the new United States strategy to combat drug trafficking, particularly fentanyl, López Obrador made the limits clear: if (the presumed targets) are in national territory, the person responsible for stopping them is the national authority; no foreign force is allowed to act in this matter, or in any other, in the territory
. We, he stressed, are the ones who must do this work in accordance with the investigations carried out in Mexico.
Then, at an express question, he pointed out that the location and capture of Ovidio Guzmán continues to be a priority for his administration, because there is no impunity for anyone
.
He said that in the past two extremes can be located in the face of organized crime: that whoever is in charge of fighting the bosses associates with them, such as the influential
Former Federal Security Secretary Genaro García Luna (imprisoned in New York), but there is also the end of the US operation Fast and Furious, in which, he stated, the Mexican government allowed its counterpart to introduce weapons into national territory, in a flagrant violation of sovereignty, an aspect that we cannot allow for any reason
.
In this regard, he pointed out again that at the time Donald Trump offered to send US agents to Mexico, but the proposal was rejected because the capture of targets is our responsibility, he indicated, even though the neighboring country has the right to act to stop drugs. , especially chemical ones, highly destructive.
He announced that next Monday a report will be presented regarding the operations of the armed forces so far this six-year term, which show a reduction in seizures of marijuana and poppy, against the increase in those of synthetic drugs.
