Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced on Thursday he was sending federal forces to Tijuana to fight the growing violence in the city, including members of the army, navy, and federal police, according to The Los Angeles Times.
“A special plan is being implemented because the killings in Tijuana have grown a lot,” Lopez Obrador said at a news conference in Mexico City.
He said the federal forces would work with local police to fight against the epidemic of violence in Tijuana, a record 2,518 people were murdered in 2018.
Members of the forces deployed to Tijuana will be part of a new National Guard the president aims to establish this year, which would consist of nearly 70,000 troops.
The plan is expected to be approved by Mexico's Congress soon.
Lopez Obrador announced an end to Mexico's war on drugs earlier this week, explaining his government would no longer prioritize using the army to capture drug cartel leaders.
Some critics of the new leftist president questioned the announcement since the army was still on the streets even though his campaign promised to remove them.
Even though the original war on drugs led to several high-profile cartel leaders being arrested, it also brought a wave of violence across the country as cartels fought one another and the army forces.
But Lopez Obrador said focusing on the cartel bosses was no longer his strategy: "There's no war. There is officially no more war. We want peace, and we are going to achieve peace."
"No capos have been arrested, because that is not our main purpose. The main purpose of the government is to guarantee public safety ... What we want is security, to reduce the daily number of homicides."
Since the military was dispatched in Mexico 13 years ago in the war on drugs, the country has registered more than 200,000 murders, with several states having homicide rates similar to the most violent countries in the world.
Lopez Obrador has proposed a number of social programs to curb poverty that drives the violent crime, but critics said his plan to send tens of thousands of soldiers to work with civilian police is militarizing the country.
Security expert Alejandro Hope said, "His anti-crime strategy barely changes anything, it's not different from that of previous governments, and even accentuates the use of the armed forces for public security."
Lopez Obrador won in a landslide last summer but has so far given mixed signals about his plan to curb the rising violence in Mexico.
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / Felix Marquez
