That has raised concerns because President Andrés Manuel López Obrador won approval to create the force in 2019 with a commitment in the constitution that it would be under nominal political control and that the army would be off the streets by 2024. However, neither the National Guard nor the army have been able to reduce insecurity in the country. Last week, drug cartels staged widespread arson and shooting attacks, terrorizing citizens in three main northwestern cities in a bold challenge to the state. However, López Obrador wants to keep the soldiers involved in policing and remove political control of the National Guard, whose officers and commanders are mostly soldiers, with military training and salaries. But the president no longer has the votes in Congress to amend the constitution and has suggested he might try to do it as a regulatory change with a simple majority in Congress or by executive order and see if the courts will uphold it. Lopez Obrador warned Friday against politicizing the issue, saying the military is necessary to fight Mexico’s violent drug cartels. But then he immediately politicized it himself. “A constitutional reform would be ideal, but we have to look for ways, because instead of helping us, it (the opposition) is hindering us, there is an intention to prevent us from doing anything,” López Obrador said. The two main opposition parties also had different positions when in power. They supported the military in public security roles during their respective administrations from 2006 and 2012. When López Obrador was running for president, he called for the army to be taken off the streets. But being in power — and seeing homicides run to their highest levels ever — apparently changed his mind. It has relied heavily on the military not only to fight crime. He views the army and navy as heroic, patriotic and less corrupt, and has entrusted them with building major infrastructure projects, running airports and trains, stopping immigration and overseeing customs at ports. Mexico’s military has been deeply involved in policing since the drug war began in 2006. But its presence was always understood to be temporary, a stopgap until Mexico could build up a credible police force. López Obrador seems to have abandoned that plan, instead making military and paramilitary forces like the National Guard the primary solution. “Their tenure should be extended,” he said. “I think it’s best for the National Guard to be a branch of the Department of Defense to give it stability over time and prevent it from becoming corrupt,” he said. He also wants the Army and Navy to help in public safety roles after 2024, the current date set in a 2020 executive order. The force has grown to 115,000, but almost 80% of its personnel came from the ranks of the army. The United Nations and human rights groups have long expressed reservations about requiring the military to do police work. and Mexico’s Supreme Court has yet to rule on several appeals against what critics say are unconstitutional duties given to the National Guard. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said last week that the militarization of political institutions, such as the police, weakens democracy. Soldiers are not trained for it, the military by its nature is not very open to scrutiny, it has been implicated in human rights abuses and the presence of troops has not resolved the pressing issue of how to reform the police, prosecutors and courts . While López Obrador claims that human rights violations are no longer tolerated, the government’s National Human Rights Commission has received more than a thousand complaints of violations 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. “The problem with using the military in political roles is that we have no control over what happens inside the forces,” said Ana Lorena Delgadillo, director of the citizens’ group Foundation For Justice. Delgadillo said bringing the National Guard under the Defense Department, despite constitutional language designating it as a civilian-led force, is “arbitrary,” will be challenged in court and will not help pacify the country. Mexico’s employers’ union, Coparmex, said in a statement that state police capabilities should be strengthened. “It is they and (state prosecutors) who are authorized to interact with the civilian population,” the group said. Perhaps more to the point, the quasi-military National Guard has failed to reduce Mexico’s stubbornly high homicide rate. Sofia de Robina, a lawyer with the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Center for Human Rights, said the National Guard “failed to reduce violence,” partly because of its military-style strategy of “occupying territory.” While this strategy – building barracks and regular patrols – can be useful in remote or rural areas, it has proven less useful and has even caused a backlash in urban areas. The police, who are from the cities they serve and live among the residents, would be more effective, experts say. But widespread corruption, poor pay and cartel threats against police officers have weakened local and state police forces. More than 15 years of experience with the military in police roles has shown “the falsity of the paradigm that the military was going to solve problems,” Delgadillo said. De Robina added that López Obrador’s latest move means he is trying to keep the military in policing indefinitely, “completely defying the obligation to be public security” without time or strategy constraints.
