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Special Report - The military as police: a balance sheet (ISSN 17414474)
More troops deployed as violence rebounds after ‘truce’
The military campaign launched by President Mauricio Funes in 2009 in support of the police is now in its sixth year, inherited by his successor, Salvador Sánchez Cerén. The number of troops deployed has increased by more than three-quarters, engaging about 40% of the country’s military establishment. Criminal violence, as measured by the number of homicides, has rebounded after the end of a ‘truce’ between the two biggest of the street gangs known as maras.
- Executive summary
- Under Peña Nieto the military remain in the field
- Extensive use of the military on two fronts
- More troops deployed as violence rebounds after ‘truce’
- Level of violence declines but is still high
- New special units to bolster mass troop deployment
- President gets free hand to deploy military
- One state of emergency after another
- Relying on Carabineros to face two threats
- Military kept out of internal security
- Almost complete militarisation
- Allowing ‘preventive’ use of armed forces
- Trying to assess effects