President Jimmy Morales has announced that, as of 31 March, the military will no longer assist the national police (PNC) in citizen security efforts. Rolled out by Morales’s predecessors as part of efforts to tackle Guatemala’s notorious crime rates, the strategy – which has also been implemented in neighbouring Honduras and El Salvador – has been controversial due to its breach of the spirit of the 1996 Peace Accords, ending the 36-year-long civil war. Morales’s reversal of this policy has been particularly surprising given the strong links between the military and the ruling conservative Frente de Convergencia Nacional (FCN-Nación), which was first set up as the military veterans’ association (Avemilgua) in 2004 before adopting its present name in 2008.End of preview - This article contains approximately 601 words.
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