The past two governments denied us a legal framework to act: Sandoval

From the Editorial Office

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday September 10, 2022, p. 4

The governments of Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto never heeded the request of the armed forces to have a legal framework that would allow their intervention in public security tasks. “Our personnel acted outside the law, on the edge of a knife… and many of them are still in prison,” reproached the head of the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena), General Luis Cresencio Sandoval.

“When they incorporated us directly into the field of public security – during Calderón’s six-year term – Sedena always asked to have a legal framework to be able to act in that area, and the answer was never to give it to us. They never gave it, neither with the administrations that put us in those tasks nor with the subsequent ones, ”said the secretary when participating yesterday in the morning conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which was held at the facilities of the 11th Military Zone, with headquarters in Zacatecas.

Continuous: And this situation led our staff to act outside the law, on the edge of a knife: they carried out actions, carried out orders and resulted in being in prison. To date we have a lot of personnel in prison, because at that time we did not have the legal framework to act in public security. We do not want to suffer that situation again; If we are given the opportunity to continue supporting public security, that time that is longer will allow us to further strengthen the National Guard (GN), and having control over it and protecting it will allow us to give it that strength..

That was the general’s response when asked about the meeting he had on Thursday with deputies from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, headed by the legislator and party leader, Alejandro Moreno, in Military Camp number 1. The meeting took place before the The Senate will endorse the minute that leaves in the Sedena the operational and administrative control of the GN.

The meeting with the PRI members, said the secretary, was informative: We let them know what the armed forces have developed in the field of NG.

It was stated – Sandoval continued – that the state governors themselves have verified that the operation of the Guard under the auspices of the militia has served them for public safety.

This initiative to increase the years in the field of the GN was explained to them, to continue; We told them that it was important how the work we do in the states, that the governors themselves see if it has served them. If the time comes when this period expires (before the Senate approved it, it was established that the armed forces would return to the barracks in 2024), we can no longer continue to act in that area, we would enter the institution with problems.

The disadvantages of not having control of the GN and the need to train its members with the discipline that characterizes the armed forces were also explained.

In the Army and Air Force we establish that discipline is the backbone of our institution; we are a great quantity of men, that if we did not have discipline, it would be a mass that would do the things that they wanted without having an objective. It is the same thing that we seek in the GN: an institution with discipline, with values ​​and virtues in the field of public security.

(With information from Emir Olivares and Arturo Sánchez)