Gen Salvador Cienfuegos encouraged soldiers to return to barracks a decade after being surrogates for police in conflict full of violence and human rights abuses

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A decade after Mexico sent its soldiers into the streets to combat drug cartels, the country’s top general has said troops should head back to their barracks, arguing their role is ill-defined and counterproductive.



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“Do you want us [back] in our barracks? Let’s do it. I would be the first to raise both hands so that we do our constitutional duties,” Mexican defence secretary Gen Salvador Cienfuegos said to the press. “We didn’t ask to be there [in the streets]. We don’t take any pleasure in it. None of us …. were trained to pursue criminals.”

The general’s rare and candid comments on Thursday came just days before the 10th anniversary of then-president Felipe Calderón’s decision to deploy the armed forces against drug cartels and organized crime.

The conflict, launched 11 December 2006, has cost almost 200,000 lives and left an estimated 28,000 missing. Soldiers have regularly been accused of human rights violations in the course of the crackdown, which has exposed shortcomings in Mexican policing and failed to establish order in many of the troubled corners of the country.

Calderón’s successor, President Enrique Peña Nieto, initially tried to turn the page on the drug war – mostly by staying silent on the subject and talking up other agendas such as the economy and structural reforms.



But soldiers still stayed in the street – something analysts attribute to public support for the crackdown and politicians’ failure to find alternative policies or successfully reform the police.



Mexico’s military has traditionally enjoyed high public approval, thanks to its role in responding to natural disasters and poor perceptions of police.

“We would love that this would have been resolved, that the police did the job that they are there to do, that they are paid to do, but don’t do,” Cienfuegos said. “There’s no rush. There has not been any rush for many years and we’re the ones confronting these problems.”



He added: “This isn’t something that can be solved with bullets; it takes other measures and there hasn’t been decisive action on budgets to make that happen.”



The army’s role in the crackdown on cartels has proved polemic at times, especially as the defence secretariat has resisted attempts at having soldiers face civilian justice for excesses committed.



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After soldiers killed 22 suspects in an apparent summary execution in the town of Tlatlaya in 2014, only one soldier was convicted for disobedience and sentenced to a year in prison, while six others were declared not guilty,



The army’s activities on the night of 26 September 2014 – when 43 students were kidnapped and presumably killed by cops acting in cahoots with criminals – have also come under scrutiny. Cienfuegos, however, has denied investigators access to soldiers stationed nearby that night.



A 2015 survey of trust in Mexican institutions ranked the army third most trustworthy, trailing only universities and the Catholic church. The police, the president’s office, politicians and political parties ranked among the worst.

