In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has given the military a series of tasks to facilitate the implementation of his infrastructure projects. This militarization raises fears of an irreversible takeover by the military.
The story began on a completely different note: Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president of Mexico in 2018, promising to send the military back to their camps, while previous governments had deployed the military across the country to fight cartels.
Once elected, the president reversed course by creating a new military agency to replace the police – the National Guard – and creating the task of ensuring public safety entrusted to the armed forces in the constitution.
“Society feels safer and better protected when this task is entrusted to the military. People feel soldiers are in uniform. This reform has ensured peace and tranquility throughout Mexico,” argued Andrés Manuel López Obrador in a recent speech.
However, far from this flattering view of the military, the number of murders since the beginning of the presidential decree reflects another reality: their number exceeds 30,000 every year and the activities of drug dealers have flourished.
An “immortal” army
The Mexican president’s reliance on the military for security extends to other areas. Gradually, Andrés Manuel López Obrador handed them control of maritime ports and customs for “national security” reasons, then the construction of some fifteen airports and parts of the Maya Rail, a controversially expensive rail project in the Southeast. Country.
Unlike the rest of Latin America, where the power of the armed forces has been limited since the fall of military dictatorships, Mexico sees the military as the only indestructible institution, analyzes Ramon Centeno, a political science researcher at the University of Sonora.
“According to the president, neoliberalism has destroyed all the institutions of the Mexican state except the military. In his view, it remains the same, if not unchanged,” notes Dowd, a researcher at the RTS project. An monday.
Mexican soldiers work at the construction site of one of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s several airport projects in 2021. [Carlos Ramirez / EPA – Keystone]
The danger of an independent power
Andrés Manuel López Obrador has gradually developed a fascination with the military and now entrusts them with a role in all his infrastructure projects.
The military has become a kind of big corporation that oversees many companies and manages profits. At risk, according to Cristina Reyes, a lawyer for the organization “Mexico United Against Crime”, he no longer wants to relinquish control over these operations.
“By giving the military new functions, and above all businesses that allow them to generate their own revenue, we are establishing an increasingly autonomous and independent force. This is irreversible. Civil authorities cannot be held to account, and there is no easy way to take those powers away from them.”
Guaranteed for posterity
The devolution of power to the military allows the government to quickly implement some projects deemed important by the president, while environmental groups oppose the construction of the Maya railway and airports.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador wants to complete these key infrastructures by the end of his mandate in a year, so is opting for demilitarization, notes Ramon Centeno. “He has a very clear ambition: he wants to pass it on to posterity, and uses the military for that. He classifies his major plans as national security measures, which, despite opposition movements, guarantee their implementation.”
Also, the rhetoric of Republicans in the United States supporting armed intervention in Mexico to attack the cartels reinforces the Mexican president’s vision of a powerful military capable of defending national sovereignty and territory in the event of intervention. Foreign.
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