Mexican lawmakers on Friday approved a plan to place the National Guard under military control – a move critics say gives the armed forces too much power.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador created the new security force in 2019 with a civilian command to replace federal police accused of corruption and human rights abuses.
His reform, which puts the National Guard under the control of the Department of Defense, passed the Senate by a 71-vote-51 vote, having already been approved by the lower house of Congress.
“The National Guard must be careful not to make the same mistake as the so-called Federal Preventive Police, which went rogue and was a school to train corrupt officers,” the president said Friday.
Before coming to power in 2018, Lopez Obrador had vowed to send the military back to barracks.
But under his presidency, the armed forces have maintained their role in combating cartel-related violence and assumed even greater responsibilities, including controlling ports and customs and major infrastructure projects.
The National Guard has 115,000 members, mostly soldiers.
The ruling party argues that the military enjoys strong support and is less likely to be infiltrated by organized crime than other branches of the security forces.
Opponents of Lopez Obrador and human rights groups have been alarmed by what Amnesty International has called a “process of militarizing public security in Mexico”.
– A worry –
Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif said the reforms “leave Mexico virtually without a federal civilian police force and further solidify the armed forces’ already prominent role in public security in Mexico.”
The increasing role of the military over the past 16 years has led to more allegations of human rights abuses by law enforcement agencies and the armed forces, and no sustained reduction in crime, she noted.
“I call on the Mexican authorities to strengthen civilian oversight in the security sector in line with human rights standards,” Al-Nashif said.
More than 340,000 people have been killed in a spiral of bloodshed since then-President Felipe Calderon’s government deployed the army to fight drug cartels in 2006.
“Experience shows that Mexico is more dangerous today than it was 16 years ago when it was decided that the military should take to the streets,” Amnesty said.
“There has been an increase in forced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, physical, psychological and even sexual torture,” she added.
Lopez Obrador’s opponents are expected to challenge the reform in the Supreme Court.
The government “tricked the Mexicans by promising that the military would return to the barracks,” said Humberto Aguilar, an MP for the opposition National Action Party.
Lopez Obrador said this week he changed his mind about the army’s role in fighting crime after realizing the scale of the problem.
