MEXICO CITY — In a State of the Nation speech overshadowed by the deaths of 52 people in a casino fire, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Friday that he will fight to the last day of his term to defeat the drug cartels that have taken over towns, police forces and institutions in parts of Mexico.
Calderon also announced the creation of a federal prosecutor dedicated to victims of violence after much criticism that his government had downplayed as “collateral damage” the innocents caught up in wars among cartels and in his crackdown on organized crime.
The prosecutor’s job will be to identify all victims so far, as the government has been asked to do, and find people who have disappeared at the hands of criminal groups, he said, “a major step to close the wounds that have opened in the country.”
The president said he regretted that the insecurity gripping the country has overshadowed the progress he says his government has made in other areas, including economic stability, universal health coverage and access to primary education.
He promised to clean up corruption among police and federal attorneys by the time he leaves office in December 2012 and challenged the governors of Mexico’s 31 states to do the same by next May. By that time, he said, they should have vetted all of their mid- and upper-level police commanders and prosecutors, and at least half of the rank and file.
“My commitment is to end my term with federal institutions of police and prosecutors completely renovated, trustworthy, honest and well-trained,” he said.
