The militarisation of Mexico

Militarization, now institutionalized in the Constitution and in practice, extended for the next six years and quite possibly forever, is not just the latest bone of contention between political parties. It is an issue that has profound implications for Mexican society, democracy, security, gender equality and human rights. It has to be analyzed within the framework of these considerations, beyond the false and hypocritical positions of the political parties.

On September 9, last year the Senate approved the president’s proposal for the National Guard to move from civilian command (nominally) in the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, to form part of the Ministry of Defense (SEDENA). SEDENA is now responsible for its operation, administration, training and deployment in national territory. It was already published in the Official Gazette.

The second part, the extension of the mandate of the Armed Forces to participate in public security tasks until the year 2028, will be law this week, after the Senate approved the proposal on Tuesday and it passes with modifications to the Chamber of Deputies.

What is at stake, beyond who won and who lost in the political arena?

To analyze it, first we must discard the pure hypocrisy of the PAN and PRI members who started, and sustained, this model of war for more than a bloody decade. Also from the NGOs in the United States such as WOLA and Human Rights Watch that now criticize the model and that, at the time, endorsed the Merida Initiative in the US Congress, which is the economic and geopolitical support of the model of the “war against the drugs”.

There are several fundamental reasons, and not only opportunistic ones, to oppose the reforms.

It is a model that generates violence and does not ensure public safety. As the president himself has said, violence against violence generates more violence. Military training follows the logic of domination, elimination of the enemy and brute force, which can work on a battlefield, but not in a community or a city in front of fellow countrymen. Crime cannot be annihilated because it is an expression of the fissures and perversions inherent in society itself. It reproduces itself to the extent that its root causes are not addressed. It is a contradiction to speak of programs that recognize the causes and at the same time dedicate the greatest resources to the armed confrontation.

No wonder it doesn’t work. The correlation between the number of troops deployed in national territory and the number of intentional homicides is undeniable. In this six-year term, homicides continue at the same level, extremely high, as during Peña Nieto’s term and femicides continue to rise. There is no evidence of success with the use of the armed forces and there are many cases of probable complicity and corruption, cases that often go uninvestigated and unprosecuted.

It leads to serious human rights violations, which go unpunished. The violation of human rights by the Armed Forces does not stop: extrajudicial executions, the rapes of Inés and Valentina, thousands of disappearances attributable to them, Tlatlaya, Petatlán, Chiapas, their action in repressing migrants subordinated to the policy of USA, the new evidence in the Ayotzinapa case that came out the same day as the presidential proposal, and the most recent case of the death of little Heidi Pérez by Navy bullets. Although the number of complaints has decreased under the sensible policy of avoiding confrontations, the problem is structural. The lack of transparency and accountability among the Armed Forces makes it difficult to clarify the crimes they commit, in a country that already has an impunity rate of over 95 per cent.

The abandonment of the purpose of transitioning from military security to civil public security: One of the modifications to approve the presence of the Armed Forces in the streets until 2028 was to increase funding for state and municipal police. More than resolving the situation of abandonment, it highlights it.

There are no real plans to train the police even though there are new models of close policing and citizen participation that have shown effectiveness. If we trust that we can train the GN to do police tasks in just a few months before being fired, why can’t we train the police? Low wages and corrupt chains of command are an invitation to corruption yet little, if anything, is done to remedy the situation.

There is a consensus among human rights organizations not to use the armed forces in public security tasks. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights established it before the Mexican government in the case of Rosendo Radilla, who disappeared in 1974, and has reiterated it. See the responses from human rights organizations regarding the current changes.

Counterpunch