A day after residents of Culiacán, Sinaloa, were terrorized by a wave of cartel attacks, President López Obrador said on Friday that the government’s security strategy is working “very well.”

At his regular morning news conference, a reporter asked the president whether he would concede that his security strategy has failed in the wake of the violent incidents this week in Sinaloa, Michoacán and Guerrero, which left a combined death toll of 36.

“. . . You say that there are no longer massacres, that there are no longer murders but they keep happening, more in recent days than in previous governments. But you keep blaming governments that left a long time ago [although] you are responsible. Do you recognize that the strategy has failed?” the reporter asked.

“What newspaper are you from,” López Obrador barked back at the journalist, who replied that he wrote for Reforma, a Mexico City-based broadsheet that the president frequently accuses of being prensa fifi (snobby or elitist press).

“Of course,” the president remarked. “I understand. You have the right to ask me but it really catches my attention because that’s the point of view of our adversaries and the opposition press, such as Reforma.”

After the reporter suggested that the view that the security strategy has failed is not one of the conservative press but rather of ordinary citizens, López Obrador responded:

“We’re doing very well in our strategy because the causes of the violence are being attended to. We’re doing very well but it’s very difficult for Reforma to accept, to recognize that we’re doing well because Reforma is a newspaper of the opposition, a conservative newspaper.”

The president described the cartel violence in Culiacán that followed the arrest and release of a son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán as “regrettable” before adding that “in no way” does it show that the security strategy has failed.

“That’s what the conservatives want, they’re rubbing their hands together, they’re going crazy looking for us to fail but we’re not,” López Obrador added.

The president traveled today to Oaxaca, where he touched again on yesterday’s events in Culiacán, making the point that the decision to withdraw and abandon the arrest of Ovidio Guzmán marked a change in the country.

Describing the situation as “complicated,” he said the arrest triggered a reaction by criminal elements that put many people in danger. “The life of a human being is worth more than the arrest of a criminal . . . no to massacres, you cannot confront violence with violence.”

Source: Reforma (sp)