MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president said Tuesday he plans to make the National Guard part of the army, erasing the thin pretense of a civilian-controlled force that was used to gain approval for its creation two years ago.
President
Andrés Manuel López Obrador dissolved the former Federal Police soon after
taking office in late 2018, saying the force was corrupt. He replaced it with
the National Guard under the nominal control of the civilian Public Safety
Department.
The idea
was that the 100,000-member guard could gradually allow the army to withdraw
from law enforcement duties. But the vast majority of recruits, officers and
training always came from the military, often on loan.
López
Obrador said Tuesday he planned to propose a constitutional amendment to make
the National Guard part of the Defense Department, to ensure its budget would
not be cut by subsequent administrations.
The last
national law enforcement force created in Mexico — the Gendarmes created by
López Obrador’s predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto — suffered exactly that fate.
But the
army’s involvement in civilian policing has drawn complaints from the
opposition and human rights groups, who say they only way out of Mexico’s
persistent high levels of violence is to clean up and strengthen the often
corrupt, underfunded and poorly trained civilian police forces.
Critics
say the army’s involvement in numerous human rights abuses proves it is neither
trained nor suited for law enforcement.
López
Obrador has vastly expanded the military’s role in Mexico’s economy and
policing. He has put the military in charge of seaports and customs
inspections, and has given the navy part ownership of the multi-modal rail and
port link across the country’s southern isthmus.
In
December, he gave the army operating control and any profits from another of
his pet projects, the Maya Train across the Yucatan Peninsula. The army would
use any profits to finance military pensions, though it is not clear the
project will make money.
Army
engineers are already in charge of building many of Mexico’s infrastructure
projects.
While
Mexican generals played leading roles in the 1910-17 revolution and
post-revolutionary governments in the 1920s and 1930s, since the 1940s the army
has been unusual in Latin America in that it has rigorously stayed out of
politics and the general economy.
In
return, a long succession of Mexican presidents made the army off-limits to
outside scrutiny. By tradition, there has never been a civilian defense
secretary, and the president does not directly name the person for that post,
choosing from a list of acceptable generals submitted by the army.
The
president is a big fan of the military, saying it is patriotic, honest
institution. He does not want his pet projects to be privatized by subsequent
administrations, and sees the military, which has traditionally enjoyed both
respect and autonomy, as a safe place for them.
https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-army-206aee7aeda118cffe3fe98982d1b35e