Mexico Civic Groups Seek Congress Debate on Proposed Gendarmerie Richard Fausset - The Los Angeles Times
go to original March 28, 2013

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, with Defense Secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos in Mexico City, plans to create a national gendarmerie as part of his security strategy. (Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images)

MEXICO CITY — Some of the most important civic groups in Mexico are imploring President Enrique Peña Nieto to let Congress debate the wisdom of creating a new paramilitary police force, or gendarmerie, to combat the persistent scourge of violence here.

The civic groups are concerned that Peña Nieto will create the new force by presidential decree, instead of introducing a bill in the Legislature. Without a vigorous debate in Congress, the groups fear, the gendarmerie may suffer from an ill-defined mandate and lack important human rights protocols, among other things.

"There are meaningful and legitimate doubts about the project," security analyst Alejandro Hope of the Mexican Competitiveness Institute said in an interview Wednesday. "So I think it's fair to ask for a discussion."

Hope's institute was one of nine groups, including victims' rights and police-reform organizations, that issued a joint statement this week calling for a debate in the Legislature on "costs, benefits and alternatives" to the plan.

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