Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday he would name a military officer to command the country's new National Guard, the central part of his plan to curb a spiral of violent crime.
The announcement risks triggering backlash from opponents and human rights activists, who say the new force will permanently militarize the country.
"The commander-in-chief of the National Guard must be a military officer," Lopez Obrador told a news conference.
"We need someone from that institution, with experience, discipline, honesty and professionalism."
He said he would announce his choice for the position, an active-duty officer, next week.
Mexico has been using the army to fight crime since 2006, when the government sent troops into the streets to crack down on powerful drug cartels.
But the so-called "drug war" has been accompanied by a wave of violence: nearly 250,000 murders, including a new record of more than 33,000 last year.
Lopez Obrador, an anti-establishment leftist, vowed during his presidential campaign last year to remove the army from the streets.
Once in office, though, he said Mexico's police forces did not have the capacity to fight crime without the military.
He proposed the National Guard as a long-term solution.
But it triggered an outcry from rights groups, which say that using the military for civilian police work has caused a surge in human rights abuses.
Lopez Obrador agreed to water down the military component of his initial proposal, putting the new force under the security rather than the defense ministry and putting a five-year limit on the army's role in fighting crime.
Those changes were enough to win the two-thirds majority he needed in Congress to pass a constitutional reform creating the National Guard.
It will have an annual budget of around $1 billion and about 80,000 personnel by the end of this year.
Lawmakers still have to pass legislation regulating how the new force will operate.
Its members "will be trained in human rights and the moderate, regulated use of force," Lopez Obrador said.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday he would name a military officer to command the country’s new National Guard, the central part of his plan to curb a spiral of violent crime.
The announcement risks triggering backlash from opponents and human rights activists, who say the new force will permanently militarize the country.
“The commander-in-chief of the National Guard must be a military officer,” Lopez Obrador told a news conference.
“We need someone from that institution, with experience, discipline, honesty and professionalism.”
He said he would announce his choice for the position, an active-duty officer, next week.
Mexico has been using the army to fight crime since 2006, when the government sent troops into the streets to crack down on powerful drug cartels.
But the so-called “drug war” has been accompanied by a wave of violence: nearly 250,000 murders, including a new record of more than 33,000 last year.
Lopez Obrador, an anti-establishment leftist, vowed during his presidential campaign last year to remove the army from the streets.
Once in office, though, he said Mexico’s police forces did not have the capacity to fight crime without the military.
He proposed the National Guard as a long-term solution.
But it triggered an outcry from rights groups, which say that using the military for civilian police work has caused a surge in human rights abuses.
Lopez Obrador agreed to water down the military component of his initial proposal, putting the new force under the security rather than the defense ministry and putting a five-year limit on the army’s role in fighting crime.
Those changes were enough to win the two-thirds majority he needed in Congress to pass a constitutional reform creating the National Guard.
It will have an annual budget of around $1 billion and about 80,000 personnel by the end of this year.
Lawmakers still have to pass legislation regulating how the new force will operate.
Its members “will be trained in human rights and the moderate, regulated use of force,” Lopez Obrador said.
