NewsLatin AmericaMorena faces in the Senate the controversial militarization of the National Guard

Morena faces in the Senate the controversial militarization of the National Guard

The legislative changes to place the National Guard under military command arrive at the Senate this Tuesday amid uncertainty about the procedure that will be followed, perhaps a quick procedure that will dispatch the matter immediately, perhaps a calm debate that will keep a controversial measure that is proving annoying for the Government. In the street the phrase is repeated like a mantra: the militarization of the country. And their own and others reproach the president for acting contrary to what he promised, that is, removing the military from civil tasks. Nothing further. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has already passed the test of the Chamber of Deputies. It remains to be seen if the Senate will also be a triumphal walk.

The always controversial Morenoite Ricardo Monreal is a key player at this time. The position that he takes on the matter as head of his group in the Senate is preceded by statements from the past in which he warned the Government that the proposed changes in the National Guard require a modification of the Constitution, where it is considered a public security institution therefore civil. In this vision, which Monreal has expressed on several occasions, the opposition places its hope that the procedure will not pass through the Senate without the appropriate debate. The morenistas face one of the most thorny measures with the wounds still open from last week’s confrontation in the upper house, when Monreal imposed the new president of the Senate, Alejandro Armenta, on his own. It took three votes to move it forward, with the resounding absence in the plenary session of some related to President Lopez Obrador. Morena has the majority and will decide how the process is carried out.

Monreal has not ruled out any procedure among those that can be followed in the upper house. But he has warned in statements to the media that the week “will be intense.” He is aware that in his party there are those who prefer a quick step to vote on the proposed changes, that would imply the absence of debate in the appropriate commission, perhaps Justice, perhaps Defense. He told the journalist Ciro Gomez Leyva that “modifying the ordinary law without entering the content is not the correct route.” He, for his part, will vote conscientiously, although he assures that he will not try to impose his influence on the vote.

“I notice the haste with which they want to continue this process, as they have already done in Congress, altering the regulations and with legal devices. I hope that in the Senate it will be different because it is more open to discussing these issues,” says Senator Clemente Castaneda of the Citizen Movement. “There is a general view that this issue requires a constitutional reform, and it would be very serious if there were no debate. The Senate is not a window of procedures of the Executive power”, complains the emecista. In his opinion, what the upper house should do is debate the security strategy that is being carried out and the “failure of the National Guard” in it.

At the beginning of the six-year term, the political groups voted unanimously in the Senate for a moratorium that allowed the Government to use the military for public security tasks on an exceptional basis. In this way, the Constitution remained as it is and the Executive was given free rein to accommodate its Security strategy. Over time, the National Guard became militarized and the military have been the body favored by Lopez Obrador, who has entrusted them with the emblematic projects of his Administration, such as the construction of the Mayan Train, the Felipe Angeles airport or customs surveillance. However, the Army has continued to star in dark chapters in which its excessive force has caused mishaps at height, such as the shooting death of a five-year-old girl in Tamaulipas, according to her relatives. This is just the most recent chapter.

The boards of the Chamber of Deputies after the vote for the bill regarding the National Guard, on September 3.Chamber of Deputies (EFE)

This “militarization of the country” in whose rejection the opposition agreed, took an unexpected turn a few days ago when the PRI deputy, for Durango, Yolanda de la Torre presented an initiative so that the Government can count on the Armed Forces in an extraordinary way to public security tasks until 2028. That is, four years more than expected.

The PAN members did not like this setback and the national president of the conservative formation, Marko Cortes, has threatened to break up the opposition bloc planned for the 2024 elections. “Let us not allow our country to continue to be militarized. A civil police force is not being formed, a military police force is being formed”, he affirmed in an act with leaders of his party in Puebla.

“The PRI in the Senate is a little different,” confides the leader of the PAN members in the upper house, Julen Rementeria. But he acknowledges that they are “in uncertainty”, both because of the path that the PRI, with which they make up the opposition bloc, may take, and because of the decisions of the Morenoites, with a parliamentary majority. “Making this a quick procedure in the Senate would be a complete mess. Monreal has said that this (the planned changes) cannot be done in any other way than with a constitutional reform, and for that they have no votes. If it were consistent, this should not be approved, but sometimes things”, Rementeria pointed out. He hopes that the morenistas in the Senate will contribute to delaying the project. In any case, comments Renteria, the debate will not be able to avoid it, because if the changes do not go through commissions, they will have to be seen in plenary.

The coordinator of the PRI in the Senate, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, has categorically rejected a militarized National Guard and “neither the initiative of the PRI in Congress to extend the time for the military to continue in the streets.” He recalls that the Civil National Guard was created unanimously in the Senate. “Approving something different now would be unconstitutional and goes against our responsibility, which is to comply with the law. Osorio Chong calls for a broad debate on the changes proposed by the Executive.

Whether in commissions or in plenary session, the President of the Government will probably have to hear from some senators “the betrayal of the country that he is committing,” in the words of the leader of the Citizen Movement, Dante Delgado, who has written an open letter to the public: “You betrayed your promise to return the Army to the barracks, you betrayed the promise to change the security strategy, you betrayed your promise to pacify the country,” he told the president in an open letter. Delgado reproaches him for the “desire to militarize security to hide the failure” of the anti-violence strategy. And of “violating the Constitution by decree. We are not going to allow it,” he warns her.

The PRI coordinator also made his political reproach to the morenistas: “Those who repeatedly pointed out an alleged militarization and accused the Armed Forces of violating human rights by asking for their immediate return to the barracks, now intends to leave them all responsibility for the public security. It is a lack of consistency and good sense,” said Osorio Chong.

The senators await the talk with Ricardo Monreal to see the path taken by the debate in the Senate on one of the most controversial measures facing the Government. Like Rementeria, the emecista Castaneda also hoped to meet with Monreal shortly. “I expect him and the coordinators of the different groups to do what they have to do so that the Senate does not end up kneeling before a presidential whim.”

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Source: EL PAIS

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