In military installations and with a report read by the Secretary of National Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, the event of the third anniversary of the National Guard was held. At the event, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that another reform to the Constitution is required for this civil institution — as ordered by the reform that gave it life — to no longer be administered by the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, but depends on the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena).
“We have to make the National Guard dependent on the Secretariat of National Defense, that is the purpose, if we leave the National Guard depending on a secretariat or an institution without professionalism, discipline, doctrine, we will make the same mistake and we cannot make mistakes. Yes, the Ministry of Public Security is important, the Ministry of the Interior is important, but in this case so decisive for the public life of Mexico, we have to seek that the National Guard is registered in an institution such as the Ministry of Defense, that the National Guard becomes another branch of the Secretariat of Defense, ” the president said Thursday.
The president argued that the constitutional reform will be so that the National Guard is consolidated, because he wants that in the future this institution will not be dismantled.
Read: 3 years after its creation, the National Guard is ineffective against violence and retains military profile: legislators and experts
“(We have) to learn from what happened, from how when there is no professionalism, discipline, order, honesty, mysticism, institutions do not last, they are weak, they are destroyed. This usually happens in all organizations, if an institution does not have mystique, doctrine, ideals, it is very difficult to preserve itself and resist the temptations of power and money, so we have to ensure that the National Guard depends on the Secretariat of National Defense, “said López Obrador.
The president added that there are questions about militarizing the National Guard, but said that it should be valued that the Army was founded to defend democracy.
“Despite mistakes made (by the Army), as in all institutions and governments, its performance has been exemplary over time, it is more what it has contributed to peace, tranquility and progress in the country, than what it has meant as a hindrance to the development of Mexico,” said the president.
As this media has documented, despite the deployment of the National Guard in the streets, murders grew 9%. There are 8,422 murders above the 92,562 registered in the period before the National Guard was mobilized. The daily average of murders was 88.
Security experts and legislators consulted by Animal Político agreed that in the last three years the National Guard has consolidated itself as a military body and not as a civilian one, as well as that it has failed to provide security to citizens.
“Militarization is not compatible with a regime of democracy, because there is a relationship between the military and citizens that is based on the threat, use and abuse of force by the state. Because that’s what the Armed Forces are, and that’s why it has the results we already know. There are lethality rates, due to the use and abuse of force. It is a state force and it is more lethal. It seems to me that this is a pending reflection, if that is the strategy we want as a country, in terms of the security model,” said Catalina Pérez Correa, professor and researcher at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE).
Data to which Animal Político had access for transparency show that two out of three soldiers who swell the National Guard do not have, to date, the certification that guarantees that they have the training and skills necessary to perform police functions, although that is an indispensable requirement according to the Law of the National System of Public Security.
There are 118 thousand elements deployed in the country
In the event of the third anniversary of the National Guard, held at the facilities of the Heroic Military College, the Secretary of Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, explained that there are currently 118,000 elements deployed in the country, mainly in the municipalities with the highest criminal incidence.
“It means an advance of 86.31% of the 136,702 (elements) projected in the constitution of the operational force by 2024,” Sandoval said.
The secretary added that the National Guard has established itself as the third institution with the highest percentage of acceptance and trust by citizens, having an 87% record in the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Security.blica 2021.
The specialist in police reform and criminal justice, Bernardo León Olea, told this media that the National Guard is not training its agents to be police, but to become a military occupation force.
“We see the National Guard agents doing municipal police tasks, that is, doing rondines, but the difference is that they do not know the area, the people of the place. The municipal police know about the area and that generates some social stability, controlling neighborhood lawsuits, something that the National Guard has no idea about. Not only do they not train them, but they do not have that proximity to the community. The National Guard is an occupying force,” he added.
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