MEXICO CITY (AP) \u2014 Mexico\u2019s president has begun exploring plans to sidestep congress to hand formal control of the National Guard to the army, a move that could extend the military\u2019s control over policing in a country with high levels of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That has raised concerns because President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador won approval for creating the force in 2019 by pledging in the constitution that it would be under nominal civilian control and that the army would be off the streets by 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Neither the National Guard nor the military have been able to lower the insecurity in the country, however. This past week, drug cartels staged widespread arson and shooting attacks, terrifying civilians in three main northwest cities in a bold challenge to the state. On Saturday, authorities sent 300 army special forces and 50 National Guard members to the border city of Tijuana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, L\u00f3pez Obrador wants to keep soldiers involved in policing, and remove civilian control over the National Guard, whose officers and commanders are mostly soldiers, with military training and pay grades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the president no longer has the votes in congress to amend the constitution and has suggested he may try to do it as a regulatory change with a simple majority in congress or by an executive order and see if the courts will uphold that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
L\u00f3pez Obrador warned Friday against politicizing the issue, saying the military is needed to fight Mexico\u2019s violent drug cartels. But then he immediately politicized it himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA constitutional reform would be ideal, but we have to look for ways, because they (the opposition) instead of helping us, are blocking us, there is an intent to prevent us from doing anything,\u201d L\u00f3pez Obrador said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two main opposition parties also had a different positions when they were in power. They supported the army in public safety roles during their respective administrations beginning in 2006 and 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When L\u00f3pez Obrador was running for president, he called for taking the army off the streets. But being in power \u2014 and seeing homicides running at their highest sustained levels ever \u2014 apparently changed his mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has relied heavily on the military not just for crime-fighting. He sees the army and navy as heroic, patriotic and less corruptible, and has entrusted them with building major infrastructure projects, running airports and trains, stopping migrants and overseeing customs at seaports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mexico\u2019s army has been deeply involved in policing since the start of the 2006 drug war. But its presence was always understood as temporary, a stop-gap until Mexico could build trustworthy police forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
L\u00f3pez Obrador appears to have abandoned that plan, instead making the military and quasi-military force like the National Guard the main solution. \u201cTheir mandate has to be prolonged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think the best thing is for the National Guard to be a branch of the Defense Department to give it stability over time and prevent it from being corrupted,\u201d he said. He also wants the army and the navy to help in public safety roles beyond 2024, the current dateline established in a 2020 executive order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The force has grown to 115,000, but almost 80% of its personnel were drawn from the ranks of the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The United Nations and human rights groups have long expressed reservations about having the military do police work. and Mexico\u2019s Supreme Court has yet to decide on several appeals against what critics say are unconstitutional tasks given to the National Guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner\u2019s office said last week that militarizing civil institutions, such as policing, weakens democracy. Soldiers aren\u2019t trained for that, the military by nature isn\u2019t very open to scrutiny, it has been implicated in human rights abuses, and the presence of troops hasn\u2019t resolved the pressing question of how to reform police, prosecutors and courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While L\u00f3pez Obrador claims human rights abuses are no longer tolerated, the governmental National Human Rights Commission has received more than a thousand complaints alleging abuses by the National Guard. The agency has issued five recommendations in cases where there was evidence of excessive use of force, torture or abuse of migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe problem with using the military in civilian roles is that we don\u2019t have any control of what goes on inside\u201d the forces, said Ana Lorena Delgadillo, director of the civic group Foundation For Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Delgadillo said that placing the National Guard under the Defense Department, despite constitutional language defining it as a civilian-commanded force, is \u201cauthoritarian,\u201d will be challenged in court and will not help to pacify the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mexican Employers\u2019 Association, Coparmex, said in a statement that the capabilities of state police should instead be strengthened. \u201cIt is them and the (state prosecutors\u2019 offices) that are authorized to interact with the civilian population,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps more to the point, the quasi-military National Guard has not been able to bring down Mexico\u2019s stubbornly high homicide rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sof\u00eda de Robina, a lawyer for the Miguel Agust\u00edn Pro Ju\u00e1rez Human Rights Center, said the National Guard \u201chas not been able to decrease violence,\u201d in part because of its military-style strategy of \u201coccupying territory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While that strategy \u2014 of building barracks and conducting regular patrols \u2014 may be helpful in remote or rural areas, it has proved less useful and even drawn opposition in urban areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police, who are from the towns they serve and live among the inhabitants, would be more effective, experts say. Yet widespread corruption, poor pay and threats by cartels against police officers have weakened local and state police forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over 15 years of experience with the military in policing roles has shown \u201cthe falseness of the paradigm that the army was going to solve the problems,\u201d Delgadillo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
De Robina added that L\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s latest move means trying to keep the military in policing indefinitely, \u201ccompletely defying the obligation that public safety be civil\u201d with no limits on time or strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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