2023-08-27 13:59:01
In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has given the military a series of missions to facilitate the realization of his infrastructure projects. This militarization raises fears of an irreversible takeover of the army.
The story had started on a completely different note: Andrés Manuel López Obrador had been elected to the presidency of Mexico in 2018 on the promise to return the military to their barracks, while previous governments had deployed the army throughout the country to fight cartels.
Once elected, the president reversed course by creating a new military institution to replace the police – the National Guard – and by enshrining in the Constitution the task of ensuring public security entrusted by the armed forces.
“Society feels more secure and better protected when this mission is entrusted to the military. People perceive the soldiers as the people in uniform. This reform has ensured peace and tranquility throughout Mexico,” said justified Andrés Manuel López Obrador in a recent speech.
However, far from this flattering vision of the army, the toll of homicides since the beginning of the president’s mandate reflects another reality: their number has remained above 30,000 each year and the operations of the cartels of the drugs have flourished.
An “incorruptible” army
The confidence shown by the Mexican president in the military when it comes to security extends to other areas. Gradually, Andrés Manuel López Obrador entrusted them with the control of maritime ports and customs for reasons of “national security”, then the construction of about fifteen airports and certain sections of the Maya train, an expensive railway line project controversial in the southeast of the country.
Unlike the rest of Latin America, where the power of the armed forces has been limited since military dictatorships fell, Mexico sees the army as the only incorruptible institution, analyzes Ramón Centeno, a political science researcher at the University of Sonora.
“According to the president, neoliberalism has perverted all the institutions of the Mexican state, except the army. In his vision, it is one of the only, if not the only institution that has remained unaltered”, specifies researcher on the RTS program Tout un monde.
Mexican soldiers work in 2021 on the construction site of one of the many airport projects of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. [Carlos Ramirez / EPA – Keystone]
The risk of an independent force
Andrés Manuel López Obrador has gradually developed a fascination for the military and now entrusts them with a role in all his infrastructure projects.
The army has thus become a kind of large corporation, which oversees several companies and manages profits. At the risk, according to Cristina Reyes, lawyer within the organization “Mexico united against crime”, that she no longer wants to cede control over these activities.
“By granting the military new functions, and above all businesses that allow them to generate their own earnings, we are establishing an increasingly autonomous and independent force. And this is not reversible. Civil authorities will not be able to claim accounts, there will be no easy way to take those powers away from them.”
A guarantee of posterity
The power entrusted to the army allows the government to move quickly on certain projects considered vital by the president, while environmental groups oppose the construction of the Maya train and airports.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador wants these major infrastructures to be concluded at the end of his mandate in a year and therefore opts for militarization, notes Ramón Centeno. “He has a very clear ambition: he wants to pass on to posterity and uses the army for that. He classifies his major projects as national security activities, this makes it possible to guarantee their execution, despite protest movements.”
Moreover, the speech of the Republicans in the United States, who advocate an armed intervention in Mexico to attack the cartels, reinforces the vision of the Mexican president of a powerful army capable of defending the national sovereignty and the territory in the event of intervention. foreign.
Emmanuelle Steels/iar
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