The changes clarify the terms under which the army can be deployed as an auxiliary police force and demand that state governors and state congresses, as well as the senate, approve the deployment. Crucially, the changes also make military personnel on such deployments subject to the civil courts.
Several army officers, questioned by Reforma, wonder what might happen if the gangsters grabbed control of either a state governorship or a state congress. The soldiers warned that the gangsters could simply intimidate politicians to do their bidding. In those circumstances, the officers asked, ordinary people would suffer because the army could not perform its constitutional duty.
Several officers also wondered whether politicians had thought through the change which subjected soldiers to the civil courts rather than the military code. They alleged that the change could lead to cases in which soldiers were prosecuted for breaking the constitution (ie committing human rights abuses).
At the commemoration of the Battle of Puebla (5 May), President Felipe Calderón said that the army would remain on the streets in Mexican states until the police were ready to take on the army's burden.
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