Mexico City.– With the opposition voting against, the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved the ruling on the reform that transfers the National Guard (GN) to the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena).
The ruling, which was approved with 22 votes in favor and 17 against, modifies 12 constitutional articles to establish that the personnel of the corporation created on the initiative of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be of military origin, but with police training.
In addition, it grants the GN the power to investigate crimes, under the direction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and indicates that said institution must execute the National Public Security Strategy, which will be formulated by the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection. During the discussion, the legislators discussed 22 reservations, but endorsed only one, presented by the former member of the MC and current deputy of Morena, Salvador Caro, who adds that in order to fulfill the purposes of public security, the coordination tasks must include “the three levels of Government.”
PRI coordinator Rubén Moreira recalled that in 2022, his party voted together with Morena and its allies for a reform that extended the presence of the Army in the streets until 2028, to give the federal Executive what it was asking for to achieve peace in the country.
He recalled that the promise was to create a civilian National Guard; however, “behind the law” a military police force was being built, so much so that the Military College has a public security degree, 140 thousand Army personnel are in the police force and the Supreme Court amended the plan regarding the fact that it had to be civilian. “What you are trying to do is very simple: put the country’s security in the hands of the Army, it must be said. Everything that was said for many years by you, who represent that left, today you want to throw it back. “Who will be the head of the National Guard? The Secretary of Defense. Who will name the head of the National Guard? The Secretary of Defense. Who will lead the National Guard? A military man,” she said. Moreira warned that the reform weakens the Army, because 140 thousand of its troops are in the GN, in addition to leaving Omar García Harfuch, the next Secretary of Public Security, without the possibility of operation, about whom she acknowledged that he does know about the subject in his charge. “The gentleman is going to fail, because he is not going to have people under his command,” she indicated. The PRI member welcomed the fact that the next president met in recent days with Governors of all parties and that Harfuch recognized the importance of the participation of the states in the issue. However, she warned the majority that with these modifications they are “condemning Claudia Sheinbaum to not achieving peace” in the country. The PAN member Paulina Rubio described the majority as hypocrites, because despite the fact that they were the ones who criticized at the time the “temporary strategy” of taking the Army to the streets, now they intend to establish it permanently. “It is unheard of that those who yesterday showed these signs, indignant, today come here to raise their hands to to entrust soldiers with the perpetuation of public safety. “You turned out to be hypocrites, rather, who today, with a clean face, come to hand over the country to the Armed Forces and the only reason I can think of is that it has dawned on you that your strategy has been bad,” he said, while showing images of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leader of Morena, Mario Delgado and the general secretary of the party, Citlalli Hernández, criticizing the presence of the Army in the streets. Rubio argued that the reform increases the political and economic empowerment of the Army, since all the financial and human resources that the GN has would be under the control of said institution. He explained that in cases involving the military, impunity, violations of human rights and opacity prevail, because the Armed Forces have a special regime in which they can omit accountability under the argument of national security, so he criticized that they intend to extend these “perks.” He described as incredible that the Morena members Irma Juan Carlos, president of the Commission of Indigenous Peoples, and Manuel Ayotzinapa survivor Vázquez Arrellano supports the reform, despite the fact that indigenous women are the most exposed to Army violations and it is contrary to the objectives for which they have fought. In response, Irma Juan Carlos said that cases such as the sexual assault of the indigenous Valentina Rosendo, for which there is a condemnation by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, occurred during the years of the “neoliberal governments”; while Vázquez Arrellano affirmed that the soldiers who participated in the Ayotzinapa case are already being tried. In his turn, the Morena member Ismael Brito asked the opposition for a vote of confidence.
“The President will be the supreme commander of the Armed Forces, we will give her all the legal and constitutional powers so that in Mexico we can all breathe the peace we long for,” he said.
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