MEXICO CITY – US Ambassador Ken Salazar criticized Mexico’s failure to accept help in the fight against drug cartels on Wednesday, saying the country had “closed the doors” to security cooperation.

In a press conference, Salazar launched his harshest criticism yet of rampant violence, police corruption and the Mexican government’s misguided “there is no problem” attitude.

“When they just say ‘there’s no problem, we have these statistics to show people there’s no problem,’ that’s not based in reality,” Salazar said. “There is a very big problem.”

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Salazar’s remarks.

Salazar he cited the violence in recent days in northern Sinaloa state as an example. Sinaloa state police chief Gerardo Mérida said Wednesday that authorities found a pile of between five and seven bodies on the side of the road there, but were still counting body parts to see how many there were.

“There are a lot of different bodies, with what we found we identified five bodies, but some are in pieces, they were dismembered, there are mentions of seven,” Mérida said.

The embattled governor of Sinaloa, Ruben Rocha, he seemed to typify Mexico’s attitude when he said on Tuesday — after a similar number of bodies were dumped on roadsides — that “we’re doing well, we’ll get over it soon.”

Salazar countered that in Sinaloa “the dead can be seen everywhere.”

Salazar has previously defended many of the Mexican government’s actions, but now says former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador “hugs not bullets” the strategy of not confronting the cartels “didn’t work”.

López Obrador left office on September 30, but his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, has pledged to continue the policy, albeit under her leadership. the troops seem more willing to open fire.

Fighting broke out between two factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel after two drug lords – one from each faction – flew to the United States and were arrested there on July 25.

Drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were detained in the United States after flying there in a small plane.

He smiled he later claimed he had been kidnapped and forced aboard the plane by Guzmán López, sparking a violent fight between Zambada’s faction and the “Chapitos” group led by the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Mexico later blamed the United States for the capos’ detention, saying it had sparked the outbreak of violence. Salazar said Mexico also shut down drug cooperation after that.

“From there it went full throttle, the Mexican government closed its doors,” Salazar said. The ambassador also criticized efforts by both López Obrador and Sheinbaum to downplay the problem of crime and violence, arguing that the problem is exaggerated and that crime statistics have fallen.

Salazar did not clarify why he believed the Mexican government’s figures were unreliable, but in recent days the government appears to have changed the way it reports homicide numbers.

“The reality for the Mexican people, and this is for business people, members of the media like you who work on the street, those who have farms, like the grocer killed in Sinaloa over the weekend because he was a leader, they don’t. live for sure,” Salazar said.

The ongoing violence “is a very serious problem in Mexico, and to say there is no problem, to blame someone else, to blame the United States, obviously is not (the solution),” he continued.

He also blamed López Obrador for turning down “$32 million,” an apparent reference to López Obrador’s decision to drop a US-funded program to donate money to train and equip Mexican police.

“It was rejected for ideological issues and other explanations,” Salazar said. López Obrador said at the time that he did not want American helicopters and weapons, but until then most American money was going to training, professionalization and legal reform.

After taking office in 2018, and López Obrador reducing police funding and gave the army, navy and militarized National Guard the primary role in law enforcement.

“The police become corrupt because they don’t make enough to live,” Salazar said. “You can’t pay a police officer next to nothing and expect them to do their job.”

Salazar had previously been known for defending López Obrador, despite his constant efforts to militarize law enforcement, to centralize power, eliminate regulatory and oversight bodies, and support Mexican government companies even at the expense of American firms.

It was unclear whether Wednesday’s critical turn in his rhetoric was in any way related to Donald Trump’s victory in last week’s US presidential election. Trump has been fiercely critical of Mexico for a long time.

____

Follow AP coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at