Politics: AMLO, Security and the Generals

MEXICO - Report 08 Oct 2018 by Guillermo Valdes, Alejandro Hope Pinsón and Francisco González

In recent days President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador revived and expanded upon a campaign promise to establish some type of civil guard to absorb the nation’s military and public security forces, despite the fact that his long time aide and hand picked choice for minister of public security has publicly said it is an unworkable idea given the complexities of the issues and legal changes it would involve. During a recent appearance in the Tlatelolco housing complex in Mexico City where student democracy protesters were massacred 50 years ago by Army troops, he revived and expanded on the idea, saying he would dissolve the Army, Navy and Federal Police into a National Civil Guard to serve as “an army of peace” tasked with resolving the country’s dire public security problems and criminal violence without the use of force and in tandem with programs to boost youth employment and overall well-being. Ironically, incorporating them into some sort of guard focused on policing the country (as usual he makes no mention of the country’s existing state and municipal police forces and he has deemed the Federal Police useless) would be to perpetuate the militarization of public security. It is one thing for soldiers and marines to temporarily assume such tasks in some states, and another for them to do it on a permanent basis and in the process cancel any effort to build the sorts of civilian police forces the country is so dire need of.

But aside from the unimaginable complications such a restructuring the future president seems determined to begin his government with a direct clash with all branches of the military, whose leaders have been restrained in public but are clearly outraged by repeated calls for the dissolution and references to them as repressive forces.

Perhaps it’s all part of some negotiating strategy typical of AMLO, but if he should fail to defuse the tension soon, the next president could find himself facing not so much as a rebellion –the Mexican Army is very institutional– but rather a more passive resistance in matters of public security, which would be very grave for the country.

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