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Mexico’s Lower House Approves Official Militarization Of The Country

Morelia, Michoacán
Gabriel Cristóver Pérez/Texas Standard
Morelia, Michoacán

From Texas Standard:

South of the border, there’s big news with implications for Texas. The AP  reports Mexico's ruling party pushed a bill through the lower house of Congress which would authorize the military to act as police in an effort to get the upper hand at long last against Mexico's drug cartels.

 

They got support from members of the country's Green party, too. One Green lawmaker was quoted as saying "We need the army in the streets" – but others are calling the move "a de facto coup" and "one of the most embarrassing and shameful pages in the history of Mexico."

Mark Stevenson, an AP reporter in Mexico City, says some cities in Mexico are “absolutely plagued by violent crime and drug cartel fights, and the only force that has been able to contain them has been the military.”

The legislation would formalize a practice that has been going on for years.

“Since about December 2006, the Mexican military has been ordered out into the streets to do police work,” but he says, “they’re operating on a sort of ad hoc basis.”

Some say the legislation sets a dangerous precedent for militarizing public security in Latin America, and Stevenson says another major issue is that the military isn’t trained to do police work.

“The thing is, everybody in the end knows what the answer is,” he says. “The answer is to do real investigative police work and everybody knows the military can’t do this.”

 

Written by Jen Rice.

Copyright 2020 KUT 90.5. To see more, visit KUT 90.5.

Texas Standard reporter Joy Diaz has amassed a lengthy and highly recognized body of work in public media reporting. Prior to joining Texas Standard, Joy was a reporter with Austin NPR station KUT on and off since 2005. There, she covered city news and politics, education, healthcare and immigration.
Rhonda is the newest member of the KUT News team, joining in late 2013 as producer for KUT's new daily news program, The Texas Standard. Rhonda will forever be known as the answer to the trivia question, “Who was the first full-time hire for The Texas Standard?” She’s an Iowa native who got her start in public radio at WFSU in Tallahassee, while getting her Master's Degree in Library Science at Florida State University. Prior to joining KUT and The Texas Standard, Rhonda was a producer for Wisconsin Public Radio.