Marcelo Ebrard defends in Washington the military presence in the National Guard

The Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations, Marcelo Ebrard, defended this Thursday in Washington the controversial reform of the National Guard, which will reinforce the role of the Army in police tasks and which has received numerous criticisms from organizations that defend human rights.

This body, he has assured, maintains "very high standards" in respect of rights and freedoms and the complaints filed against it are much lower than those of other agencies of the Mexican security forces.

“Until now the armed forces had been intermittently involved [in law enforcement] but without legal authorization to do so, and were involved in a non-transparent manner.

We have created a National Guard that is under the command of the Secretary of National Defense because nobody wants any ambiguity," said the foreign minister, who recalled the case of former Federal Police Chief Iván Reyes Arzate, sentenced in New York to ten years in prison. for collaboration with drug traffickers.

“No one wants that to happen again in the future.”

Ebrard was speaking at a press conference at the State Department together with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, and other authorities from the two countries, after a session of the High-Level Security Dialogue was held to assess the application of the Bicentennial Understanding .

The Understanding is the security strategy agreed upon by the two countries in 2021 and which replaces the Mérida Initiative, more focused on a military approach.

That the National Guard, made up mainly of military personnel, is going to carry out police tasks, he stressed, "does not imply that human rights abuses are going to occur."

Mexico, he insisted, "has one of the most guaranteeing systems in the world judicially speaking."

And the body created by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintains "very high standards" on human rights.

Ebrard also defended his government's handling of violence against journalists in Mexico, where at least thirteen reporters have been murdered so far this year.

The foreign minister insisted that “there is no impunity” and “all cases are being investigated.

"That didn't happen before," he specified, also assuring that his government is "investigating the disappeared for the first time."

Despite calls for calm from the Mexican government, the military presence in the National Guard until at least 2028 has caused great concern among Mexican civil society and NGOs.

Just hours before the foreign minister's statements, the human rights defense organization Human Rights Watch had published an open letter, addressed to Ebrard and Blinken, in which it denounced that "the Mexican government has intensified the military deployment for police tasks such as its main security strategy.

The transfer to the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) “leaves Mexico without a civilian federal police force and leaves police tasks exclusively in the hands of the military.

That step contradicts international human rights standards and disregards fifteen years of evidence demonstrating the failure of army deployment as a counter-violence strategy.

The Mexican Armed Forces have committed numerous human rights violations in recent years, often without being held accountable.

However, when asked if these types of measures cast doubt on Mexico's commitment to democracy, Blinken limited himself to answering with a succinct "no."

The two delegations wanted to underline the good quality of their relationship during the appearance, to praise the achievements obtained in the year of collaboration under the Understanding, in the areas of the fight against drugs, arms trafficking and irregular immigration.

In statements at the beginning of the session, Ebrard had highlighted the confiscation of 32,000 firearms, which he said has helped reduce the level of homicides in his country by 9%.

“If these 32,000 weapons were in Mexico, we would not have (that) reduction.

Those 32,000 weapons mean 17 million cartridges, and each cartridge can kill someone in Mexico.

It is something extremely important.

They are not numbers, they are people,” the foreign minister pointed out.

For his part, Blinken insisted on the need to intensify efforts to achieve better results.

The Secretary of State placed special emphasis on measures to combat drug trafficking, especially fentanyl.

Last year alone, he noted, some 108,000 people died in the United States from opioid overdoses.

“Our ability to protect our respective populations will depend on our effective collaboration,” he noted.

A day earlier, the two countries had announced an agreement to address the increase in Venezuelan immigration.

As part of the pact, Washington will offer 24,000 visas to Venezuelan migrants, but will deport to Mexico those who cross the border irregularly.

Thursday's meeting also came hours after Mexico, whose president declares himself neutral in the war in Ukraine and has proposed a peace plan, voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia's illegal annexation. of four occupied Ukrainian provinces.

"Our position is that we want a peaceful solution to the crisis, but we do not support any invasion of a country or a forced annexation of territory," declared the Mexican foreign minister.

In addition to Blinken and Ebrard, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas;

the Mexican Secretary of Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez;

and the attorneys general of the United States and Mexico, Merrick Garland and Alejandro Gertz Manero, respectively.

Also in attendance, among others, was the Mexican Secretary of Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval.

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