In eight states of the country governed mainly by Brunette and the PAN, the secretary of Public security state is a military on leave or retired. Experts considered it risky that the military command continues to bet on solving problems of insecurity, since military training does not guarantee respect for human rights.
In Michoacán, the new governor Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla (Morena) appointed the General Staff Diplomate as Secretary of State Security, Jose Alfredo Ortega Reyes, who was also head of Strategic Planning, Security, and Intelligence of the Ministry of National Defense and head of the Unit of Specialized Bodies by Competence of the National Guard.
In Sinaloa, the new governor Rubén Rocha Moya (Morena) appointed as Secretary of State Security the Lieutenant Colonel of the Infantry Diploma of the General Staff, Cristóbal Castañeda Camarillo.
In Baja California Sur, the also new governor Victor Manuel Castro Cosío (Morena) appointed Javier López García, Captain of the Navy of the Mexican Navy Secretariat, as Secretary of State Security.
In Colima, the new Governor Indira Vizcaíno (Morena) appointed the captain of the Navy as Secretary of State Security, Manuel Llerandi Ruiz, who belonged to the Marine Corps and the Special Forces and Parachute Rifles Unit for 32 years.
In Guerrero, the new Governor Evelyn Salgado Pineda (Morena) gave possession as Secretary of State Security to the Captain of the Navy, Evelio Mendez Gomez.
Ricardo Gallardo Cardona placeholder image (PVEM), new Governor of San Luis Potosí, also chose to appoint as Secretary of Security the General Diplomate of the General Staff, Guzmar Angel Gonzalez Castillo, also former director of the Higher Academy of Public Security of the National Guard in San Luis Potosí.
Meanwhile, in July of last year, the governor of Tamaulipas, Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca (PAN), appointed the Captain of the Frigate as Secretary of Security, Jose Jorge Ontiveros Molina, while in Morelos, the governor Cuauhtémoc Blanco Bravo has since 2018 as holder of the State Public Safety Commission (CES) to the Diplomate Admiral of the General Staff, Jose Antonio Ortiz Guarneros.
They warn of risks of militarizing security
Armando Rodriguez Luna, researcher at the Collective for the Analysis of Security with Democracy, and Jorge Lara, An expert in security, they agreed that the appointment of military commanders – on leave or in retirement – in positions of state or municipal public security is not new, since it dates back at least 15 years.
Jorge Lara said that “the great mistake of recent governments is to have renounced and thrown away all police development efforts at the three levels, and it was decided to have these commands, which are borrowed from the Armed Forces, because It is the closest that the civil authorities have to guarantee a certain order, but that is totally insufficient. In developed countries it is the other way around, the military authorities are under civilian command ”, he said.
He considered that those military personnel in retirement or on leave who are appointed to security positions, “must go through a process of reconversion and even a civilian doctrine.”
For his part, Armando Rodríguez considered that there is no proven case of prolonged success of public security secretaries, both with military and civil training.
He highlighted temporary success stories with civilian command in Nezahualcoyotl, Mexico state; in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León; Morelia, Michoacán; but not at the state level. “The only one that gained relevance at the time was the Nuevo León Civil Force,” he said.
He explained that under the military command there is no relevant case of success at the state or municipal level, and in contrast, an increase in torture, illegal deprivation of liberty and abuses against the police elements themselves have been documented.
He said that although discipline is created with military command, “it also has an effect on the relationship with citizens, and the most serious effect is that military discipline weighs the use of force.”
He considered it worrying that Morena governments replicate military public security as promoted by the federal government.
“The conditions are opened so that the military power can have its own forms of negotiation with others local powers that be, be they political, business, criminal, that is where there is going to be a change in the correlation of forces ”, he warned.
For this reason, he indicated that at the three levels of government, “the medium and short-term bet has to be to strengthen civil public security institutions, focus on developing capacity, infrastructure, human resources, equipment and training for the police, aligned to standards citizen security and respect for human rights. Also a coordination between the states and municipalities with the federal government. None of this can guarantee military training, it is very far, at the opposite extreme of this type of approach ”.
In recent days, during the forum “The debts, capacities and wills of the State”, organized by the ITESO Jesuit University of Guadalajara, Santiago Aguirre of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Centro Prodh), expressed the opinion that militarization is a process in which more and more tasks are being handed over to the Armed Forces in security, but also the military commanders are occupying positions in institutions mainly such as the prosecutor’s offices and security secretariats.
He considered that the National Guard is an example of this, because the chain of command has already been subordinated to the military despite the fact that the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection is legally the guideline. He considered that the reform proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador so that the Guard passes to the SedenaIt would be a very difficult institution to dismantle.
- Mexico City: Omar Garcia Harfuch
- Michoacán: José Alfredo Ortega Reyes
- Sinaloa: Cristóbal Castañeda Camarillo
- Baja California Sur: Javier López García
- Tamaulipas: José Jorge Ontiveros Molina
- Colima: Manuel Llerandi Ruiz
- San Luis Potosí: Guzmar Ángel González Castillo
- Warrior: Evelio Méndez Gómez
- Morelos: José Antonio Ortiz Guarneros,
- Hidalgo: Mauricio Delmar Saavedra
- Guanajuato: Álvar Cabeza de Vaca Appendini
- Querétaro: Miguel Ángel Contreras Álvarez
- Aguascalientes: Porfirio Javier Sánchez Mendoza
- Sonora: María Dolores del Río
- Baja California: Ricardo Iván Carpio Sánchez
- Quintana Roo: Lucio Hernández Gutiérrez
- Puebla: Rogelio López Maya
- Veracruz: Hugo Gutiérrez Maldonado
- Zacatecas: Arturo López Bazán
- Tlaxcala: Alfredo Álvarez Valenzuela
- Campeche: Marcela Muñoz Martínez
- Nayarit: Jorge Benito Rodríguez Martínez
- Nuevo Leon: Aldo Fasci Zuazua
- Yucatan: Luis Felipe Saidén Ojeda
- Jalisco: Juan Bosco Agustín Pacheco Medrano
- Coahuila: Sonia Villarreal Pérez,
- Chihuahua: Gilberto Loya Chávez
- Durango: Roberto Bravo Ontiveros
- Tabasco: Hernán Bermúdez Requena.
- State of Mexico: Rodrigo Sigfrid Martínez-Celis Wogau
- Chiapas: Gabriela del Socorro Zepeda Soto
- Oaxaca: Heliodoro Díaz Escárraga
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx