PRESIDENT Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico has surprised many by allying closely with the military and making them a key instrument of his agenda of social justice and democratic transformation.

Where liberals and human rights activists saw the military as inherently repressive and corrupt, Amlo has insisted on their popular revolutionary origins, professional discipline and capacity to overcome violent crime. 

Before he took office the military were constitutionally forbidden from intervening in matters of public order, but corrupt presidents (contemptuous of the law in all respects) often ordered them to do so anyway, causing numerous innocent civilian casualties. 

Amlo on campaign promised to send the army back to barracks, but soon after taking office, on witnessing more closely the uncontrolled criminal violence inflicted on ordinary Mexicans by gangs linked to venal civilian politicians, he changed his mind. 

The military, as a disciplined professional force, were less corrupt than the civilians, and with strict governmental supervision and human rights training could help to restore order. They also had the means to assist in many other policy areas.

In the past three years the military has made extensive contributions in public health and social programmes, and military engineers have played a crucial role in public works like the new Mexico City airport and the Tren Maya railway. It has delivered projects of high quality, on time and within budget, which is a novelty in Mexico. 

He persuaded the legislature to authorise military intervention in public security for a limited period of time. He also dissolved the notoriously corrupt Federal Police and began replacing it with a much more professional and well-equipped National Guard (GN by its Spanish initials). 

The Federal Police were poorly paid, had no barracks and were often lodged in hotels, and had a total strength of 40,000 for a huge country of 126 million people. 

The GN is well paid and equipped, trained with military discipline and respect for human rights, and already has more than 100,000 female and male officers with over 250 barracks throughout the country. 

I myself have seen the GN working co-operatively with communities. They are radically different from other Mexican police; so far there have only been three human rights complaints against them, all of which have been investigated and those responsible held to account.

The president has now gone further and persuaded congress to pass a law placing the GN (initially a civilian force with military training) under the military (the Defence Department), and is considering extending the period in which the military controls public security to 2029.

Not surprisingly, Amlo has been accused by the opposition and human rights groups at home and abroad of “militarising” the country. He replies that the civilian government gives the orders and the military obey.

To understand the situation it is necessary to realise that Mexican police forces, with rare exceptions, are a disaster of inefficiency and corruption: it was not only the former Federal Police but most of the municipal and state forces that were unfit for purpose. 

Another crucial circumstance to bear in  mind is the corruption of the judiciary. Amlo has shown scrupulous respect for judicial independence, relying on his appointment of trustworthy individuals as chief justice and attorney-general to reform the judicial system from within. But results so far have been disappointing. 

Time and again those arrested on well-documented charges of serious crimes, including politicians and senior officials from previous governments, have been released on flimsy pretexts by subservient judges. 

The problem recently hit the headlines again with the initial report of the special commission investigating the appalling 2014 Ayotzinapa massacre, in which 43 students from a rural teachers’ college were murdered and disappeared. 

Amlo’s insistence on impartial investigation finally led to charges being laid in August 2022 against 83 individuals including a former attorney-general and a military general who commanded a battalion in the area of the crime. 

Scarcely was the ink dry on the arrest warrants than a judge notorious for such decisions issued stays of execution to release several of those accused.

Amlo’s legal team were ready and immediately appealed the decision and laid new charges, preventing a travesty of justice; but the extent of judicial corruption was laid bare. 

A further complication in these efforts to ensure effective justice is the use of mandatory preventive detention in the high-level arrests relating to Ayotzinapa: lawyers for former attorney-general Murillo Karam argued that it violated his human rights, and (not by coincidence) a conservative judge brought forward at precisely this moment a proposal to annul preventive detention.

Amlo’s government immediately issued a strongly worded statement insisting that mandatory preventative detention is a constitutional principle, and urging Supreme Court judges to respect this. 

It isn’t a simple issue: preventive detention has been used in Mexico to imprison many working-class and marginalised people without trial, and Amlo himself has been working to change this and has just issued an amnesty to release many of them. 

But for serious crimes (murder, kidnapping, corruption, fraud etc) committed by the rich and powerful it is necessary to ensure accountability.

The government is therefore insisting that the measure must be maintained for serious crimes.

This in itself is a legal and constitutional matter, not directly related to the military. But it is another illustration of the problems faced by a popular progressive government — even one with a clear parliamentary majority and a 69 per cent approval rating — in implementing major reforms in the face of powerful vested interests and endemic corruption. 

This is why the GN, and the role of the military in law enforcement, is so important, and so popular with most Mexicans.

David Raby is a retired academic and independent researcher on Latin America. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @DLRaby.