Monday, December 15, 2008

Faulting Mexico's Military as a Drug War Police Force

By Barnard R. Thompson

·   A proposal to activate the Mexican National Guard

As Mexico labors to keep from the abyss, pushed ever closer by organized crime, savage gunmen, drug traffickers, inhuman gangs and other villains, the Mexican military – for the most part – has been a force worthy of praise in the war against the cartels, killers and criminals.

Yet there are scores of critics of the escalated presence of Mexico's "national defense" forces, the armed services, in the fight against drug cartels and cutthroats, even while many of the same disparagers acknowledge the laudable job the military is doing – or trying to do – in crime-ridden regions of the country.

The increased involvement of the military in battling organized criminals (in most cases "organized crime" is a Mexican euphemism for drug traffickers and their treacherous associates), as ordered by President Felipe Calderón upon taking office in December 2006, was a bold and needed – and costly – action.  An action made ever more imperative due to police corruption coupled with judicial inadequacies, both further impaired following a dearth of proper attention and effectiveness during the administration of Calderón's predecessor, Vicente Fox [2000-2006].

However the escalated role of the military was not intended to be permanent, even though criminals, kidnappers and killers have since made a short to medium-term armed forces involvement seem less possible.

Now an alternative possibility, on how to get Mexico's armed forces out of the everyday work that should be the responsibility of police, has resurfaced in the Mexican Congress.  One first outlined to this observer a decade ago, at a time when cartel activities and relationships were growing exponentially, but with violence more in check than today.

This year, in late November, a proposal for a law enforcement means and mechanism to replace the military was made, in committee, in Mexico's federal Chamber of Deputies. 

Retired General Roberto Badillo Martínez, an Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) member of Congress who serves on the National Defense Committee in the lower house, has recommended activation of Mexico's National Guard, the Guardia Nacional.

Badillo said that presently Mexico's police agencies are unprepared and ill-equipped to carry out the anti-drug trafficking mission assigned to the military.  And he noted that the Mexican Constitution envisages the formation of a National Guard.

A military organization that operates as a national defense or police force, an entity that according to Badillo would be headed by members of the Mexican military.  One that "would take over the narcotrafficking fight duties today assigned to the armed forces," he said.

The Mexican Constitution does in fact authorize a National Guard.  Mentioned in at least seven Articles, number 73 (XV) grants Congress the power to establish regulations for the organization, arming and disciplining of the National Guard.  Citizen enlistees have the right to appoint commanders and officers, and the different Mexican states are empowered to train the guardsmen in accordance with the congressionally approved regulations.

Article 31 (III) obligates Mexicans to enlist and serve in the National Guard, according to stipulations set forth in the governing organic law, "in order to secure and defend the independence, territory, honor, rights and interests of the homeland, as well as domestic tranquility and order."

In the mid-1990s, when longtime friend Norberto Corella (R.I.P.) served as a National Action Party (PAN) senator (1994 to 2000), Norberto and I went to lunch one afternoon when he told me about a PAN planned initiative to establish a National Guard in the United Mexican States.

With the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) seen as a threat at the time, after rising up in 1994, and other small guerrilla groups and social activists rattling sabers, among other things PAN (at the time an opposition party) members feared that the PRI government was using supposed insurgent unrest to militarize Mexico and Mexican police agencies.

So to counterbalance the perceived PRI threat and the government's use of the military in excess, along with real issues and needs, Norberto said the National Guard should be established in those states where threats or violence were beyond the control of law enforcement agencies and officials.  As well, he noted that this was not to be just another security force, insofar as the plan was to deploy the guardsmen only as long as they would be needed for whatever emergency, and then the provisional forces would return to their homes and civilian lives.

As to the continuing and future use of the military in the drug war, last February, in a speech given during the Mexico City visit of Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, President Calderón singled out the nationwide need to cleanse and strengthen law enforcement agencies and the administration of justice.  Institutional improvements so that the use of Mexico's armed forces, in the fight against narcotics traffickers and crime, can in due course be lessened, he told the High Commissioner.

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Barnard Thompson, editor of MexiData.info, has spent 50 years in Mexico and Latin America, providing multinational clients with actionable intelligence; country and political risk reporting and analysis; and business, lobbying, and problem resolution services.