• DECREE: Amid the coronavirus emergency, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered Mexico’s military to remain in a lead role in public security until 2024, they year when his 6-year mandate expires. Human rights and security experts condemned the decree.
• ACCOUNTABILITY: “It does not specify…the temporal and geographical scope of its deployment; it does not include mechanisms for oversight or accountability, nor does it subordinate the armed forces to civilian power”, said Seguridad Sin Guerra, a civil-society umbrella organization.
• CONTROVERSIAL: In March 2019, the López Obrador administration created a new security force -Mexico’s National Guard- to address the country’s violence crisis. By the end of 2019 however, Mexico recorded its most violent year on record with 34,582 murders,
• RESPONDER: “The goal…is to give operational sense to the legislative mandate of empowering the armed forces as first responder. Such an important but also that simple”, Public Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said today insisting that military would be subordinate to the National Guard.
