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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Mexico approves president's National Guard proposal |
| 2019-03-07 |
| [PULSE.NG] Mexico approved a constitutional amendment Wednesday to create a new National Guard, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's controversial proposal to fight the violent crime racking the country. The reform, which already had more than the required two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, was effectively ratified after more than half Mexico's 32 state legislatures voted to approve it -- the final constitutional hurdle. Lopez Obrador's original proposal was sharply criticized by human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... groups, which said the new force would permanently militarize the country. But the final version was modified to put a five-year limit on the army's role in fighting crime and place the National Guard under the command of the security rather than the defense ministry. "Seventeen state legislatures have now approved (the reform), the threshold established by the constitution," tweeted Senate leader Marti Batres, a member of the president's party, Morena. Once the remaining state legislatures vote on the reform -- a formality -- the federal Congress will officially publish it, at which point it comes into force. Lopez Obrador's proposal initially drew strong opposition, including in the Senate, where experts and activists testified that Mexico has been hit by an kaboom of violence and human rights abuses since it first deployed the military to fight the country's powerful narco mobs in 2006. However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... after amendments to reduce the military's role in the new force, Congress passed the legislation almost unanimously, with just one vote against in the lower house. Since the 2006 deployment, Mexico has registered nearly 250,000 murders -- including a record 33,334 last year -- as fragmented cartels wage war on the authorities and each other. Lopez Obrador, an anti-establishment leftist, vowed during his presidential campaign last year to remove the army from the streets. Once in office, though, he said Mexico's police forces did not have the capacity to fight crime without the military. He has floated the idea of putting a current or retired military commander in charge of the new force. This is not the first time Mexico has attempted to overhaul its security forces. Lopez Obrador's predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, created a new force called the "Gendarmerie" in 2014 in a bid to bring anti-drug policing back under civilian command. But the reform ultimately fizzled, with almost no changes on the ground. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #9 place the National Guard under the command of the security rather than the defense ministry Gave up defending borders? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2019-03-07 15:00 |
| #8 ..oh, and funded by American junkies. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-03-07 11:09 |
| #7 ..they're toast. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-03-07 11:08 |
| #6 When the justice system is broken, the cops, judges and prison guards and politicians are all crooked, the military is all you have left. But then, if the generals get bribed, you're toast. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2019-03-07 10:12 |
| #5 "HR groups" may be just NGOs who know the drugs must flow to keep their funding going. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2019-03-07 09:49 |
| #4 just returned from trip down the Baha Peninsula: newpresident has eliminated tolls on the Scenic Highway (1). road already showing signs of less than stellar upkeep present on previous trips. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2019-03-07 09:33 |
| #3 Where's the graft in that? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2019-03-07 09:19 |
| #2 Gotta spread the corruption around. Better to have a 2d Amendment. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-03-07 07:04 |
| #1 Lopez Obrador's original proposal was sharply criticized by human rights groups, which said the new force would permanently militarize the country. If the human rights groups got a better idea, they need to put up or shut up. For all the appearances, Mexico is just a couple of really bad days away from failed state status, and the cartels ain't helping. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2019-03-07 06:15 |