Breathe
For at least two decades, international human rights organizations have expressed their concern to the Mexican State regarding the degree of militarization prevailing in the country and the army's confrontations with organized crime groups. Despite this, the militarization process continues.
The public security strategy based on militarization has plunged the country into a spiral of violence that generates an increase in human rights violations such as torture, excessive use of force, sexual harassment -mostly against women-, arbitrary executions, displacements and forced disappearances, among others. In other words, this security strategy is part of and the cause of the deep crisis of violence in the country, which puts people's lives at risk.
In contrast, although the appreciation for the Armed Forces is higher with respect to the rest of the authorities, according to the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public Security (ENVIPE) 2022, the level of trust in the Army has been declining. The population that "trusts this institution a lot" went from 45% in 2020 to 43% in 2022. And it is men who trust the most (50% said they trust a lot, while only 37% of women think the same).
Thus, President Andrés Manuel has decided to centralize public security policy decision-making at the federal level in a single institution: the National Guard, which will now be under the control of the Sedena (Secretariat of National Defense). Arguing that it has a high level of approval and that this institution has had a decrease in complaints of alleged rights violations. In the eyes of the executive branch, it is justifiable to generate a security strategy in which constant civilian functions are granted to military commanders, assigned to the National Guard -among them: the distribution of vaccines against COVID-19, the distribution of free textbooks, the construction of infrastructure such as the "Felipe Ángeles" airport, the transfer of money from social programs, as well as the cooperation of customs and ports- (Observatorio de la Guardia Nacional y Causa en Común, 2022).
However, supporting these decisions solely on the basis of trust levels is an uncritical and inaccurate action. Among other things because, to date, the National Guard has registered 1056 complaints, which represent a higher number than those presented to the Sedena since 2020 -the violations with the highest number of complaints were unduly rendering public service; lack of legality, honesty, loyalty, impartiality and efficiency in the performance of functions, jobs, positions or commissions; and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment- (Sistema Nacional de Alerta de Violación a los Derechos Humanos CNDH, 2022).
In turn, in a collaborative reflection with various civil society organizations and collectives that resulted in a report, coordinated by EQUIS Justice for Women, on vulnerability to militarization, we talked about the consequences of assigning greater functions to the Armed Forces and specifically to the National Guard.
The participating Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) agree that the general acceptance of the Armed Forces is justified by the perception of insecurity as one of the most pressing problems in Mexican society. Therefore, the construction in the social imaginary of insecurity influences the adoption of behaviors that allow the Armed Forces to have more power and, in turn, replicate the gender stereotypes of the use of force to "strong and armed" men who have structure, orders and discipline to do so, and thus legitimize their actions.
In other words, if people are concerned about insecurity and believe that the police are corrupt, then they conclude that the Armed Forces can better fight organized crime as the lesser of two evils. And herein lies the importance of emphasizing the effects of militarization. In this sense, in general terms, we point out that:
a) Militarization affects public security and access to justice (for the most part, when human rights violations are committed by the Armed Forces, judicial processes are opaque, which discourages the exposure or reporting of violence).
b) Military personnel do not have the knowledge or skills to act as first responders in cases of violence against groups in vulnerable situations, due to their organization and codes of action as reactive corporations - combat and annihilation of the enemy - which leads to arbitrary detentions based on stereotypes, intrusion into the dynamics of the communities without a vision of prevention and protection.
c) Due to military jurisdiction, impunity prevails with respect to violence and human rights violations committed by the Armed Forces, as well as the difficulty in documenting them.
d) The increase in the budget for military institutions brings with it a decrease in the budgets for attention to and prevention of violence or public policies that strengthen gender equality (by 2023, the budget allocated to Sedena is expected to increase by 60%, while the program to promote attention to and prevention of violence against women will increase by only 5%).
Our development, welfare and opportunities are compromised in a context of deployment of the Armed Forces, aggravating the particularities of the life cycle, generating conditions of discrimination and the absence of a public security policy based on human rights that impede the enjoyment of rights.
Although the Armed Forces are at the top of the list of institutions most trusted by citizens (ENVIPE 2022), it should be noted that citizens perceive them as the lesser of the evils and this does not necessarily mean that the militarized security strategy ensures a decrease in the rates of violence in the country; on the contrary, it is a palliative solution that has proven to be non-functional.
Militarization is not a strategy for peace, but above all, it does not address the serious situation of human rights violations that has been documented and that will continue to have a differentiated impact on groups in vulnerable situations.
*Aranza Gamboa and Mónica Rebollo are members of the public policy area of the feminist organization EQUIS Justicia para las Mujeres (@equisjusticia).
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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