Defense Secretary Calls for More Troops, Greater Powers in Waging 'War on Drugs' Kevin Martinez - WSWS.org
go to original October 31, 2016

Secretary of Defense General Salvador Cienfuegos (Google)

Mexico’s Secretary of Defense, General Salvador Cienfuegos, has called for the country’s military to intervene even more directly into the 10-year-old “war on drugs.” Speaking at a seminar entitled “National defense and international humanitarian law,” Cienfuegos asked the government to recruit more troops and create a legal framework to allow the military to operate with impunity.

“There is a drain [on the army], and it’s obvious why: we are working all over the country, at all times, in the mountains and in the cities,” Cienfuegos declared. He warned that if the government wanted the army to do more, it would have to supply “more people.”

While the ostensible target of the Mexican police and military has been the drug cartels, in reality this conflict has served as a pretext to clamp down on social opposition. Large sections of the Mexican government of President Enrique Peña Nieto and the Mexican ruling class as a whole are among the beneficiaries of the drug trade and are intimately tied to both the drug cartels and US imperialism.

Given that the Mexican military has until now operated with carte blanche in the towns and countryside, Cienfuegos’ “legal framework” can only mean blanket immunity for soldiers who commit abuses. The general’s demand that the military have a more direct say in shaping government policy can only be taken as a grave warning to the Mexican working class.

In his comments General Cienfuegos remarked that the army had suffered from “fatigue” in its 10-year war against various drug gangs. When reporters asked about the lack of a legal body to monitor the army he contemptuously declared, “Ask the legislators, not me; I do not make the laws.”

The Mexican newspaper La Jornada noted that the three main political parties were taken aback by the general’s blunt comments, calling them “unusual.” Patricio Martinez, senator of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was quoted as saying, “We need to correct, amend the Constitution so that the army can assist with civil authority.”

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