Mexico gives military more power
Protests against it fall on deaf ears
Los Angeles Times
MEXICO CITY –– Thousands of protesters marched against it. Hundreds of human rights groups implored lawmakers to reject it. Even the United Nations warned of its dangers.
But Friday, Mexico’s Congress approved the Law of Internal Security, which gives the military broad new powers and solidifies its central role in the country’s drug war. President Enrique Pena Nieto is expected to sign the legislation despite criticism that it could fuel more violence.
In many ways, the measure enshrines into law what has been happening for more than a decade.
It was late 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched Mexico’s war on drugs by sending thousands of troops to his home state of Michoacan, where powerful cartels were battling for turf. Military officers were regarded as less corrupt than poorly trained local and state police forces, some of whom collaborated with criminal groups, and in subsequent years many more soldiers and marines were deployed in the country.
The strategy has continued under the current president. Military officers patrol streets, operate checkpoints and detain suspects. But all this time, the military hasn’t had legal authority to carry out law enforcement inside Mexico’s borders.
The new law allows the president to deploy federal troops for operations inside Mexico without approval of Congress. The deployments are for up to one year but can be extended indefinitely. The law also defines domestic law enforcement as a national defense issue, meaning that information about military operations could be classified as secret.
Human rights advocates say that instead of solidifying the presence of armed forces on Mexican streets, lawmakers should focus on initiatives to strengthen and professionalize Mexico’s civilian police forces.
“Soldiers should not be out patrolling city streets trying to investigate and prevent crimes,” said Maureen Meyer of the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank. “Those are tasks for well-trained, professionalized police forces and a functional justice system.”
Protesters marching in several large demonstrations in recent weeks have pointed to the military’s role in rights violations, including documented cases of soldiers raping, torturing and carrying out execution-style killings. There are also questions over the army’s failure to stop the disappearance of 43 students neara military base in 2014.
From January 2012 to August 2016, there were 5,541 complaints of human rights violations against the armed forces registered with the National Human Rights Commission. Only about 6 percent of those complaints resulted in criminal trials.
Jose María Tapia Franc, a senator from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, said he voted for the law “to give certainty to the armed forces.”
“It is absolutely false that this law is the militarization of the country,” he said Friday. “The focus is on supporting local forces.”
He said he wondered what critics of the law would do “if overnight the armed forces returned to their barracks and left the population unprotected?”
Critics of the new law question whether it will be effective at reducing violence. Mexico is on track to record more homicides in 2017 than in any year since authorities began publishing statistics 20 years ago. Officials say 2,371 homicide investigations were opened in October, more than any other month.
The explosion in violence comes in part as a result of the military’s “kingpin strategy.” One by one, powerful drug lords, including Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, have been taken into custody or killed. While some security analysts say federal forces helped stop Mexico from being completely overtaken by drug cartels, the strategy also unleashed a wave of violence as would-be kingpins fought for control of the cartels.
“The military’s role has proven to be catastrophic,” said Alejandro Madrazo, a researcher at the Center for Economic Investigation and Teaching think tank. “It has only exacerbated the violence, and this new law will exacerbate it further.”
A statement issued Thursday by the U.N. high commissioner for human rights warned that the law gives too much power to the military without necessary civilian checksand balances. “We are concerned that the bill gives the armed forces a leadership and coordination role in certain circumstances, rather thanlimiting their role to aiding and assisting civilian authorities,”