Mexico shields in a law the delivery of public security to the military | International

Mexico has sealed in a law what had been a de facto reality for more than a decade. 14 years after the controversial departure of the Army from the barracks To patrol the streets with the justification of the increase in drug trafficking, the delivery of public security to the military already has legal shielding, a recurring request from the military leadership. It has been the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the great critic of the militarization of police work during his long years in the opposition, who has consolidated the new role of the Army until March 2024, practically until the end of the presidential term. The influence of the Armed Forces in Mexican civil life It has been on the rise since Morena came to power, with an increasingly clear hand policy for the military. Real estate businesses, logistics or management concessions have multiplied in the last two years.

The agreement signed this Monday is framed within a larger plan, advanced with the creation last spring of the National Guard, the controversial body born expressly to control violence in the country. López Obrador’s star measure in security matters required an express reform of the Constitution, which established that “as the National Guard develops its structure, capabilities and territorial implementation, the President of the Republic may dispose of the permanent Armed Forces in public security tasks ”.

It has surprised the moment chosen to make that prerogative effective. More than a year has passed since the establishment of the National Guard, with its troops widely deployed throughout the country, completing everything from immigration controls on the southern border to police work in the hottest neighborhoods of the capital. The agreement also comes in the midst of a health crisis due to covid-19, with the Army also in command of hospitals and health resources to deal with the pandemic.

This situation is underlined by Raúl Benítez Manaut, security expert and researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), as one of the possible reasons. “There are looting, attacks on police officers in hospitals. The Secretary of Public Security, Alfonso Durazo, is in need of the help of the military and it is very likely that they will not listen to him. This agreement is a support for López Obrador to his management capacity ”. It would be, according to the analyst’s interpretation, a struggle within the state security apparatus.

The institutional drawing planned for the National Guard was from the beginning surrounded by controversy. During negotiating constitutional reform with the oppositionLópez Obrador agreed to lower the weight of the military in the new corporation, organically attached to the Ministry of Public Security and not to National Defense. With a military spirit – made up of ex-military and former police officers – the National Guard has a two-headed command: one civilian and one military. Their work must be regulated by law, controlled by Congress and subordinated to the civil power of the Secretary of Public Security.

Those balances and counterweights are those that would have been blown up with the decree of this Monday, according to Alejandro Madrazo, an academic at CIDE and an expert in security policies. “It is a requirement of the Army, which is tired of wearing the National Guard costume. He no longer accepts civil orders or oversight of Congress. What López Obrador has just implemented is the same strategy that Felipe Calderón founded and extended to Peña Nieto, centralizing public security tasks in the Army. In the new norm, no supervision mechanism is established, it does not oblige subordination to civilian command, but mere coordination, it does not define its functions and it is not sufficiently regulated. ”

López Obrador’s new movement stages another twist on his change of discourse since he came to power. One of his campaign slogans in 2018, continuing his criticism of militarization during his time in the opposition, was “hugs, not gunshots.” The new mantra is now “The Army is good, because the Army is a people.”

Madrazo considers that the agreement of this Monday violates the constitutional mandate that protects the police work of the Army. “Now it is time for a civil society response to bring this rule to justice. It even touches him on the part of the political class that is now with Morena and that in his day criticized the strategy of Calderon and Peña Nieto ”. The Supreme Court overturned the Interior Security Law two years ago, by which the last PRI government normalized the presence of the Army in the streets.

Army business

The increase in military power during López Obrador’s term has not been limited only to the security sphere. For the past two years, the military has taken on assignments as diverse as the distribution of medicines, the monitoring of Pemex pipelines and fuels, the distribution of textbooks, the fight against sargassum or the transfer of money from social programs. This same Monday it was known that the Ministry of Defense (Sedena) has begun to build 26 branches of the Government’s social bank that channels aid. It will constitute a total of 1,350 bank branches for which it has a budget of 2,941 million pesos.

The largest concession so far has been confirmation last March that the construction and operation of the new Mexico City airport would fall into the hands of the military. The Army will not only build the terminal, but will exploit civil and commercial operations through a company whose management will be occupied by the military. The Army will also help build two sections of the Maya Train, the public work flag of the sexennium next to the airport.

In the midst of a pandemic, the Army has also seen its functions increased. The Government has handed over control of 31 hospitals and both Sedena and the Secretary of the Navy (Semar) have been making purchases of medical supplies in recent months. Contracts, both for goods and services, which often bypass the transparency and supervision requirements stipulated for public tenders and opt for the fast track of direct awards.

This exceptional channel for public contracting has been a favorite for military agencies, which has even caused discomfort within the Government due to the large margin of arbitrariness and opacity of these processes. During López Obrador’s first year, Sedena increased the use of direct awards by 50% compared to the previous year, reaching an amount of 5,000 million pesos, according to an investigation by the Tec de Monterrey Government School and the NGO México Evalúa.

In the case of Semar, this public procurement fast track doubled the amount awarded the previous year. In fact, the Navy has virtually no knowledge of public tenders. Only 0.8% of the total contracts were carried out by conventional means and subject to more control and supervision. All this, without having the processes reserved according to the National Security law, of which there is no public information.

“In a democratic society, the military should be held accountable and not be subject to the opacity reflected in public procurement data. And the first interested party should be the Government, which announced at the beginning of its mandate that it will reduce direct awards to a minimum, ”says Marco Fernández, a researcher at Tec and Mexico Evaluates. Since López Obrador’s arrival, the military budget has increased more than 15% and the Army is increasingly establishing itself as one of the most influential political actors in Mexico today.

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