The Militarization of Mexico

The Militarization of Mexico

By: Erreh Svaia

Caprine Dispersion

Twenty-six years ago the then president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, an independent candidate who had defeated the traditional candidates during the elections, taking advantage of the popular boredom towards the political system; Closed the Congress in an authoritarian manner and the judiciary intervened in what was called a "self-coup", from that moment on, and paradoxically under the approval of the citizens who then saw with good eyes the violent actions of Fujimori , Peru descended in a dictatorship tragically and ironically, that began applauded by the majorities, and in the end very lamented by the cases of authoritarianism, repression and corruption that were revealed within the government of Fujimori, the good intentions, as it usually happens, in the end they left a bloody and violent route before a traumatized town that was not able to admit at the time the serious error and the destiny of its government.

In 2006, after some very disputed elections (that if Andrés López had applied only a little of the electoral pragmatism of 2018, he would surely have won), Felipe Calderón was declared a winner by a very narrow margin, as a measure of "legitimacy", before the little differential in votes that took place in the elections, a frontal war was announced against organized crime, then revealed as an evil that had penetrated most of the police organizations in the country, the so called  “war” implied the entrance of the army into the streets and into civic life, for the then opposition (led by Andrés López), this implied a "self-coup process" similar to that of Fujimori, and that "put us on the edge of closing of the Congress ", for the manipulative opposition and the militant press, a military dictatorship with Calderón at the front, was imminent, the reality is that Calderón lacked the political ability to achieve consensus on many issues such as the required reforms left pending by his predecessor Vicente Fox, lacked the intelligence to effectively carry out his frontal attack on crime in which preference was given to brute force instead of intelligence strategy and tactics, and the result was its political isolation, even with its own political party the PAN, a fierce media war that took to the extreme the perception of what was happening and the defeat of the PAN despite the strong macroeconomic numbers in a time when even the US entered into a severe economic crisis.

Later, during the government of Peña Nieto, the so-called "Internal Security Law" was proclaimed, decreed in order to regulate the role of the army in the streets as security elements, the campaign promise of a better security management to the interior but was not fulfilled and Peña Nieto's PRI basically followed Calderón's strategy in a less dynamic way, but equally ineffectively, once again an leftish manipulative opposition (with López in front again) "tore its clothes" and denounced the supposed militarization of the country, the beginning of what they said, a new dictatorship of the PRI "that saw the country and power was getting out of their hands" nothing more distant from reality, given that the law sought primarily to basically regulate the exercise of the military in security duties, a void that had been left since the previous administration.

To the surprise of many, today elected president Andrés López, whose campaign promises included taking the army out of the streets, sensitively caring for the victims of violence and a policy of "hugs and not bullets," makes it clear that the campaign promises have been just that, promises, and that the security plan to be exercised as of December 1 follows the "strategic" line of Calderón and Peña Nieto using the army as the executor of the security plan, taking the militarization role of its predecessors, as it completely and unrestrictedly cedes the role of security to the army, drastically reduces the role of the police, and removes the need for criminal investigation and prosecution and preventive intervention, including the growing military personnel and the creation of a so-called National Guard, if the then opposition emotionally denounced the militarization of the country, Where their moral stature now that  they are taking firm steps in that direction? Now that they are in power, militarization has become morally correct? Has that been the case all the time, if they do it is wrong and if we do it is right?

Is Andrés López now looking to "legitimize" his government after a false start and the enormous weariness that it has suffered after the illegal consultation and the lack of coordination in the blocs dominated mostly by Lopez's party? The truth is that López's strategy does not stand out from the paradigm left by his predecessors, he continues to put the army in the center and exacerbates the paranoia of the previous governments with the plan to further expand the military corps, for López, who denounced opposition often the role of the army, the tactic is revealed as a possible error, in addition to a notable "betrayal" towards human rights organizations that supported him to denounce the role of the army as a repressive organ in previous administrations, López is preparing no doubt for the moment when his political capital is still eroded to alarming levels, we will have to wait and see if the time will reach him before he can consolidate his military command, and if what follows after him does not turn out worse than the nightmare that the militant press that supported him, transmitted to us during two sexenios.