There's a 'double-edged sword' hanging over Mexico's decade-long war on drug cartels

Mexican senators on Wednesday approved an Internal Security Law, which would formalize the military's role in the country's domestic security.

Their votes came despite protests from their Senate counterparts, international organizations, and Mexican citizens. The bill faces further discussion but could get final approval by December 15. It was first approved by Mexico's lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, during a contentious session on November 30, and throughout deliberations, opponents inside and outside congress have railed against it.

Mexico's constitution limits the military's domestic actions during peacetime, but the armed forces have been deployed to combat drug trafficking and organized crime since the first days of 2007, when then-President Felipe Calderon sent troops into his home state of Michoacan just a few weeks after taking office.

The bill — proposed by members of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI — would create a legal framework for the public-security functions the military has been carrying out on an ad hoc basis for more than a decade, like manning highway checkpoints and pursuing and arresting suspects.

Supporters say it would address legal issues around those deployments. The bill would set guidelines for the president's ability to authorize military action, but critics have said it makes it too easy to send the armed forces into the streets and opens the possibility they could be used against protests. They've also said the bill could allow deployments to be extended indefinitely.

A new initiative proposed by the bill would have the military provide intelligence to the government and its security agencies. The measure would also establish a group of government officials who would make decisions about the implementation of new measures the president could then, if needed, invoke to restore "internal order."

"The thing that I hear from a lot of people is, 'Yeah, but aren't they already doing it. And isn't this just sort of bringing that under code of law?' And that's a reasonable point," Everard Meade, the director of the Trans Border Institute at the University of San Diego, told Business Insider.

"Creating some more law and clarifying the legal framework is not a terrible idea, even if you think, as I do ... that it's not a good idea," Meade said. "The broader point is they're already doing it, and they're often doing it under really shady jurisdiction."

Mexico without war!

Criticism has come from all sides. Opposition legislators have called for calm, detailed discussion about the bill, rather than the previous fast push through the Chamber of Deputies that apparently left no time to read or debate it.

Lawmakers and civil-society groups inside and outside of Mexico have also charged the bill gives the military too much leeway in its domestic actions. Legislators have also criticized measures within the bill regarding the use of force as "cosmetic" and said that changes made by Senate committees are "insufficient" or "superficial."

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission has said the law is vague and doesn't include objective definitions of "internal security" and opens the possibility for it to be applied in "any" situation.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized the premise of the law, saying it provides no exit strategy for the military and is "ill-conceived."

The UN's high commissioner for human rights said formalizing the military's role in domestic security was "not the answer" and that doing so reduces incentives for civilian authorities to act in their traditional roles.

The Washington Office on Latin America — which noted that the military was still operating in 23 of Mexico's 32 states a decade after its first "temporary" deployment — has cautioned that the measure as is would likely lead to more abuses and hinder transparency.

Mexican protesters took to the streets of Mexico City during the Senate's deliberations on Wednesday, chanting "Mexico without war!" and calling for the law to be rejected.

The PRI and parties allied with it have touted the necessity of the bill, dismissing international criticism and stressing the importance of a legal framework for the military's domestic operations.

The continuing threat posed by powerful criminal organizations and their often more violent offspring undergirds many arguments in favor of the bill. But most admit the military's training is incompatible with policing.

Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, called the measure a "double-edge sword," because while the military had the capability to confront heavily armed criminal groups, it is not trained or equipped to carry out law-enforcement jobs like gathering evidence or interrogating suspects. (The law would aid the military by clarifying its responsibilities toward suspects, Vigil said.)

"If you use the military, the allegations and the issues of human-rights violations are probably going to continue," Vigil told Business Insider. "But at the same time, if you don't use them, then Mexico is really sticking its neck out in terms of being able to provide nationwide security against these complex drug-trafficking consortiums."

David Shirk, the director of the Justice in Mexico program at the University of San Diego, differed, saying that lack of investigative capacity was disqualifying.

The military "can't identify, track, and ... they don't have the necessary intelligence and, importantly, the evidentiary basis on which to bring people to justice that a part of a vast criminal conspiracy," Shirk told Business Insider. "The problem is neither does the Mexican police force."

Shirk noted that the Mexican military has been involved in domestic operations for decades, with some arguing its role extends back the middle of the 20th century. By 1995, he said, there were calls to include the armed forces on the national public safety council.

But the expanded deployment in 2007 — rising from 20,000 to 50,000 soldiers — was intended as a short-term solution until criminal groups could be suppressed and police forces could be better trained.

Those troops are still in the streets. In places like Guerrero, riven by drug-related violence, they remain deployed to augment or replace local police. Tamaulipas, the northeast Mexican state that is the home turf of the Gulf and Zetas cartels, depends entirely on the military for order, after all the state's city and town police forces were dissolved because officers were linked to cartels fighting in the state.

Mexico's military remains one of the country's most trusted institutions, and the army is its most trusted security branch. But many see these prolonged deployments as directly responsible for more human-rights abuses and for increased violence throughout Mexico.

"So to me, it's absolutely clear that if we see this government or another government that comes next turn to even more military involvement or start deploying the military more, we're going to see more people get hurt," Shirk told Business Insider.

A very long-term project

The Mexican military currently operates domestically under a vague clause allowing it to "aid" civilian law enforcement when asked to do so.

Military leaders have expressed unease about domestic operations, and the Mexican government has taken steps to hold military personnel accountable for abuses committed while acting in a public-security capacity.

Under a law approved in 2014, soldiers accused of violating civilians' rights are tried in civilian courts.

"That's a big deal" and an important part of making sure abuses are dealt with transparently, Shirk said, though he doubted there had been enough time to assess whether that policy was being used well and had been effective in protecting against violations. (The Washington Office on Latin America has said that reform has not been fully implemented.)

Mexico has made little progress in reforming and reconstituting local and state police forces, which were often ineffective or infiltrated by criminal elements, and has shown little interest in doing so. Critics of the bill have charged that it removes incentives to carry out those reforms, but even a sincere effort to effect them would "be a very long-term project," Vigil said.

"It's going to take decades before they're up to speed," he told Business Insider, "and in the meantime they're going to have to use ... the military to conduct a lot of those [law-enforcement] operations."