The Mexican government does not get off the strategy of militarization. The President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, confirmed this Wednesday in his daily press conference that the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar), a military body, will be responsible for controlling the operation of the Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City (AICM). "[The Navy] is already in charge of controlling the surveillance of the airport, it has done a very good job, I think many are already noticing: there is no theft of suitcases as it happened before and care is taken that no contraband enters, that drugs do not enter. We are preventing it from reaching the extreme of when the airport was controlled by drug trafficking," said the leader.
Navy soldiers, as López Obrador has indicated, were already present at the airport. In February 2022, the government deployed 1,500 military personnel to "guarantee security" in one of the weak points of trafficking drugs, people and other illegal goods — EL PAÍS was able to document in 2021 a human trafficking network in the AICM linked to a drug trafficking group. In a new twist, the authorities go a step further: until now, the operation and management of the airport corresponded to the Secretariat of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport, but with the new measure, it will be the Semar that has sovereignty over Benito Juárez, the airport with the most air traffic in the country – more than 46 million people in 2022, according to the Airport Operational Statistics —.
In a decree presented on Tuesday, the Government established that in the next 60 calendar days the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation must pass the baton of the Benito Juárez to the Navy. Also update the share capital of Grupo Aeroportuario de la Ciudad de México, Servicios Aeroportuarios de la Ciudad de México and AICM to complete the transfer of control of the airport.
For its part, the Ministry of Defense (Sedena) will continue to manage the airport of Tulum, Felipe Angeles, Campeche, Puebla or Nuevo Laredo, as clarified by López Obrador. The measure is not new: it consolidates the militarization strategy in which the Government is immersed and has placed the military in civilian tasks such as controlling the security of airports, the capital's metro and works such as the Mayan Train macroproject.
This Easter, the strategy took on a somewhat surreal and dystopian aspect: the authorities disseminated photographs of soldiers walking along the country's beaches. More than 8,000 members of the National Guard (GN), Navy and Army were deployed among the main tourist areas of the country. The measure was an attempt by the government to save the season and give a sense of security and stability after the holidays opened with at least eight murders in two of the main tourist destinations: Acapulco, in the state of Guerrero, and Cancun, in Quintana Roo.
The militarization of various spheres of public life in Mexico has been repeatedly denounced by numerous social groups, civil society organizations, security analysts, and worries a sector of the population that fears that the military will accumulate power in a country with a past of Dirty War and repression. Others see the strategy with hope in the face of the serious crisis of insecurity and violence that Mexico is suffering.
The Navy, the Army and, especially, the GN have not stopped gaining power under López Obrador. Especially the GN, one of the main projects of the president, born as a corporation of a civil nature. The president is now trying against all odds to transfer control of the entity to the Armed Forces and thus turn it into a new military body. Although the measure was overturned by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, the leader does not cease in his attempt and announced that in 2024, in the last month of his six-year term, he will present a new reform initiative that transfers the management of the GN to the Sedena.
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