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Special Report - The military as police: a balance sheet (ISSN 17414474)
New special units to bolster mass troop deployment
The military were deployed in support of the police in 2011 in what was expected to be a brief campaign. As the number of homicides continued to rise it was extended throughout the term of President Porfirio Lobo and plans were laid for the creation of a specialised military police unit. To this Lobo’s successor Juan Orlando Hernández added the creation of an élite police unit; both went into action in 2014, after the number of homicides had begun to fall slightly — a trend that appears to have continued this year.
- 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