Militarization Has No Effect Against Crime: InSight

When important elements of the Armed Forces are placed in these non-military roles to carry out functions of an essentially police nature, for which they have not received training, it is more likely that human rights abuses will occur and corruption will increase.”

Craig Deare, academic in security.

Despite relying increasingly on the Armed Forces, protagonists of serious cases of human rights violations, and contrary to his criticism of militarization when he was a candidate for the federal Executive, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has not managed to prevail over criminal groups, according to an analysis by the consulting firm InSight Crime.

In the report entitled “Mexican Army will continue to fight crime despite human rights abuses,” the security consultant recalled that before becoming president, López Obrador criticized his predecessors for the use of military forces to confront criminal organizations, and promised to return the Army to its established role as protector of national sovereignty.

At the same time, he pledged to use the National Guard, a public security force that was conceived to be under civilian control, to pacify the streets of the country, affirming that his crime prevention strategy of “hugs not bullets” it would reshape criminal dynamics for the better.

However, InSight Crime highlighted that it was last September, when the president announced his change of ideas by stating that “the Army must continue to be the frontline force to combat the country’s sophisticated drug trafficking groups.”

And it is that before the still high levels of homicidal violence; With a lack of locally trained police and an unready National Guard, President López Obrador returned to the national security policy followed by his predecessors.

The consultant explained that the presidential decision comes at a time when the Armed Forces are involved in the Ayotzinapa case, one of the most emblematic of institutional and notorious brutality in the country, which casts doubt on its credibility.

The InSight Crime analysis recalled that, eight years after the disappearance of the 43 normalistas, the Commission for Truth and Access to Justice in the Ayotzinapa case (CoVAJ) found that at least one member of the Armed Forces had infiltrated the group of students the night of their disappearance (September 26, 2014), and that the military elements would have been aware of the events, in real time while they were deployed on the ground, but they did nothing.

trust in military

The report added that, by tradition, the Army has stood apart from other security forces in Mexico in terms of credibility.

This is because, unlike the municipal police forces “riddled with corruption”, the military has the public’s trust, and contrary to the National Guard, with its own corruption problems, it has a long history where it is considered reliable.

However, “the Army is not a force to combat crime.”

“The use of the Armed Forces (to fight the cartels) has become the new normal,” Craig Deare, an academic specializing in national security issues, told InSight Crime.

He pointed out that “when important elements of the Armed Forces are placed in these non-military roles to carry out functions of an essentially police nature, for which they have not received training, it is more likely that human rights abuses will occur and corruption will increase.”

In conclusion, the consultant highlighted that despite the concerns expressed by different human rights organizations, the Army maintains its function as the main public security force in Mexico and the president, once a contradictor of the country’s militarization, “now goes through a beaten track”.

maritza.perez@eleconomista.mx