A general is in charge of the Ministry of Health in Brazil.
The state of exception is in force in Ecuador, Peru and Chile.
Buenos Aires police revolt over salary improvements.
The death of a lawyer at the hands of the police ignites public anger in Bogotá.
An operation against a clandestine party ends with 13 dead in Lima.
In Mexico, the Government relies on the Army for almost everything.
The extraordinary measures against the spread of covid-19 have given an unexpected role to the police and the military.
Faced with the still fresh memory of the dictatorships of the seventies and eighties, the security forces now present themselves as guarantors of order and, above all, efficient.
The leading role of the uniformed, however, raises many suspicions for the future consequences that may have given them so much power.
The needs for social control have empowered arms.
The phenomenon is not homogeneous in the region, but it continues as a pattern that the uniformed have taken control of the streets.
“In countries where the Armed Forces already had an important role, such as Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, the coronavirus accentuated that role.
In the case of Mexico, for example, ports and highways were even ceded to them, ”says Argentine political scientist and security expert Fabián Calle.
The uniformed men have quietly stepped into the limelight, as if people viewed the new
status quo as
a natural and inevitable consequence of the pandemic.
The most paradigmatic case of this growing power has been Brazil.
President Jair Bolsonaro's flirtation with the uniformed has given them unprecedented visibility in a democracy.
His vice president, Hamilton Mourão, is a retired general and 10 of his 23 ministers have passed through the barracks.
In the military cabinet, the Minister of Health, Eduardo Pazuello, stands out, a military expert in logistics who knows little about health policy.
Bolsonaro's relationship with the barracks comes from his younger years.
At the beginning of his military career (he retired as captain), he led a mutiny.
This is how he got the political support of the security forces and created a base that helped him stay in Congress for 30 years.
In the 2018 elections, when Bolsonaro was elected to the Planalto, the number of elected military and police officers quadrupled compared to 2014. The most radicalized sector, made up mainly of young soldiers, continues to grow.
In São Paulo alone, the number of active duty police and military with license to contest municipal elections has increased by 62% compared to 2016. As the politicization of the barracks progresses, experts warn about the possible risks that the uniformed men will become a vector of democratic breakdown.
Fabián Calle does not believe that we are facing such a possibility, but he recognizes that things will no longer be as before the pandemic.
“There are weak states, inefficient bureaucracies and growing problems.
All governments end up resorting to one of the few organized bureaucracies with a chain of command that also works.
But there is no jump to power.
What there will be will be more economic resources and more influence, because this will not be free ”, he warns.
Another country where the armed forces have undoubtedly acquired more preponderance is Mexico, where the uniformed men never had the weight of other places in the region.
The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, went from campaigning for them to return to the barracks in the face of the failure of what is known as the war against drug trafficking, to granting him control of various instances of the Administration, such as customs and ports.
During the pandemic, the Armed Forces have been in charge of developing field hospitals and distributing the necessary supplies throughout the country.
Added to this is a greater presence in the streets, with the National Guard, the body created and with a change in the legislation that allows them to act in matters of public security.
The police in the province of Buenos Aires, in Argentina, have already collected the bill.
For three days, armed policemen went on an unprecedented strike that ended with a rise in wages.
The "Buenos Aires", as it is known, is a force of 90,000 active men with a long history of excesses and corruption that no government has managed to control.
Since the return to democracy in 1983, the different administrations have progressively underfunded the Armed Forces, which thus paid for their dictatorial past, and transferred resources to the police.
The one in Buenos Aires now stood up with the argument that the pandemic had reduced its income (without football and shows, overtime ended), while its work had been multiplied by the control of quarantine.
The coronavirus is not the only thing that has given the security forces a leading role in the last year.
In Bolivia, police pressure was the trigger to force the departure of then-President Evo Morales.
In Colombia, the murder of a young man after a shot by the riot police once again exposed police excesses.
In the South American country, the alarms were turned on again this week, after the death in police custody of a lawyer.
The disenchantment of the population with the police is only increasing and the need for reform seems inevitable.
The Chilean military police are also on the street, but by order of the Government.
This Friday, President Sebastián Piñera decided to extend the state of emergency throughout the territory for another 90 days.
The measure began to take effect in Chile as soon as the pandemic began, so the country will spend nine months with the military enforcing traffic and assembly restrictions.
The Executive justified the decision by the covid-19, but the ghost of public disorder hovers.
October 18 marks a year of social unrest in Chile and the constitutional plebiscite will be held on October 25, with more than 14 million people summoned to the polls.
It will be a referendum under unprecedented conditions, such as a curfew, which runs between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.
“The health crisis cannot be solved with the military in the streets.
It is an excess and, at the same time, it reveals the inability of the authorities to establish basic norms of citizen security ”, points out the Chilean Gabriel Gaspar, political analyst and former undersecretary of the Armed Forces of the second Government of Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018).
For the diplomat, in his country the military has been pushed "to patrol the Chileans, when the Armed Forces are designed rather to defend them."
Can the military be tempted with power?
Fabián Calle believes that it is unlikely that they will reach the prominence of the Pinochet years, but he does not rule out that they will "raise their profile" if violence grows.
"It will not be to take power," he says, "but they will mark the ground."