Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
Source: Mexico News Daily
The federal government’s security strategy has come under fire at a virtual forum organized by four organized crime research organizations.
Among the issues that drew criticism were continuation of the militarized security strategy of the two previous governments and a failure to address policing at the local level.
Source: Mexico News Daily
Army and navy personnel now head up security ministries in 10 of Mexico’s 32 states, triggering concern about the increasing militarization of the country.
The governors of seven of 11 states won by Mexico’s ruling Morena party at the June 6 elections have appointed military leaders as their security ministers.
04/29/2021
Source: The Economist
MEXICO CITY
The maya train, a 1,500km-long railway that is due to run through the Yucatán peninsula, is one of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pet projects. But rather than entrust the job to world-class architects or engineers, Mexico’s president has given it to military men. Last year he said the armed forces would build several sections of track, later adding that they would also operate part of the line. In March it was revealed that the army would not only construct and run the railway, but also keep all the profits from it, too.
The story of the Maya train hints at the rising influence of the armed forces under amlo, as he is known. During his campaign in 2017 he promised to remove soldiers from the streets and criticised the army for human-rights abuses. But since becoming president he has given them more and more power. They have not held such sway since the end of Mexico’s military-led government in the 1940s.
04/26/2021
Source: The Economist
THE MAYA TRAIN, a 1,500km-long railway that is due to run through five states in the Yucatán peninsula, is one of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pet projects. But rather than entrust the job to architects or engineers, Mexico’s president has given it to military men. Last year he said the armed forces would build several sections of track, later adding that they would also operate part of the line. In March it was revealed that the army would not only construct and run the railway, but also keep all of the profits.
The story of the Maya train hints at the rising influence of the armed forces under AMLO, as he is known. During his campaign in 2018 he promised to remove soldiers from the streets and criticised the army for human-rights abuses. But since becoming president he has given them more and more power. They have not held such sway since the end of Mexico’s military-led government in the 1940s.
04/15/2021
Source: Reuters
Mexican authorities have charged 30 marines for allegedly participating in a string of forced disappearances in the violent northern border city of Nuevo Laredo in 2018, the Attorney General’s Office said on Thursday.
The charges mark the first high-profile move against military personnel by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in late 2018 vowing to curb violence and end impunity. His government has made unprecedented use of the military for a range of projects from policing to construction.
04/14/2021
Source: Yahoo! News
Thirty Mexican marines have been arrested over the disappearance of an unspecified number of people in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas in 2014, officials say.
Prosecutors say the victims went missing when the marines deployed in the border city of Nuevo Laredo.
01/21/21
Source: The Guardian
A witness to the disappearance of 43 Mexican student teachers has alleged that soldiers were involved in the 2014 attack , the country’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has confirmed.
The disappearance of the trainees from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College on 26 September 2014 rocked Mexico, sparking widespread protests and calls for justice, but the investigation into the case has been widely criticized.
12/20/2020
Source: KSAT San Antonio
MEXICO CITY – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday the army will run the Maya train project and several airports, and use any profits to finance military pensions.
The army is already overseeing construction on some parts of the controversial project, while private firms build the rest.
12/17/2020
Source: The Washington Post
MEXICO CITY — When President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office, his senior aides were blunt. Mexico’s security system was “in ruins,” they warned. Homicides were at record highs. Local police forces were infiltrated by crime groups. Tens of thousands of people had been forcibly disappeared. The country, they concluded in an analysis sent to the national Congress, had been “transformed into a cemetery.”
López Obrador, an icon of the Mexican left, was a longtime critic of the U.S.-backed war on drugs. “Soldiers should be returned to the barracks,” he had insisted. But confronted with the highest levels of violence in 60 years, he responded as his predecessors had: He called on the military.
11/21/2020
Source: The Los Angeles Times
MEXICO CITY — As a candidate for president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador slammed Mexico’s armed forces and the “mafia of power” that he said controlled them. He accused soldiers of human rights abuses in the country’s bloody drug war and publicly clashed with Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, then secretary of defense.
But after taking office, López Obrador changed his tune, embracing the same military leaders he had once bashed.
Mexico Institute 