Army Commander in Chief Says Critical Infrastructure Project “Distorts Main Role” of the Institution

In the framework of the discussion of the critical infrastructure project in the Citizen Security Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, the commander in chief of the Army, Javier Iturriaga, made known his reservations about the measure promoted by the Government.
Specifically, and according to Emol, Iturriaga intervened in the instance – where the Minister of Defense, Maya Fernández was also present – and pointed out that “we are going to comply with the Constitution and the laws, but it is a duty to point out that the same Constitution generates for the Army some priority tasks that have to do with defense. And these tasks that are derived towards public order are distorting our main role.”
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“It is a duty to make it public; I know that it is part of the discussion, but they are tasks that will affect our operationality, because they are the same troops that are equipped for other tasks, which must derive this main function to other problems that the country is having,” Iturriaga added.
In addition to the previous objections, the commander in chief added that the guts will need a period of training, especially those that are not “familiar” with tasks such as detention, identity control and search.
After the situation, Deputy Maite Orsini (RD), made clear her “discomfort” with the intervention of Iturriaga. “We have here the two ministers of state, and there are the Armed Forces. AA, who are speaking against the project that the Executive is presenting when we have FF. AA that they are not deliberative and that they have to subordinate themselves to the civil power,” he said.
For her part, the Minister of Defense, Maya Fernández, said that “there are observations to improve, but never a commander in chief has put an obstacle in advancing in this. I think there are still things that are typical of the leu, what the commander in chief has proposed is a preview of what we are going to discuss in the law.”

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Original source in Spanish