MEXICO .- It’s called AIFA, after one of the star projects of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: Felipe Angeles International Airport, in Santa Lucia. And it is a joint-stock company with mixed capital —mainly from the State but also a bit from the private initiative —whose board of directors is headed by a military.
It was established last year and, according to national security analysts, was the first formal step in the militarization of the Mexican economy because President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has opened the doors to the Armed Forces in multiple sectors beyond public security.
The Mexican Army today has a presence in at least 30 activities of the country’s economic development ; among them, in the construction sector, commerce, tourism, social support, telecommunications, reforestation, education and health.
It all started with a “ low blow ”to the voters who elected him, specified the civil organization México Unido contra la Delinquency. Because AMLO promised during his presidential campaign to demilitarize public security, but once in power he did nothing but expand the presence of the soldiers as civil policemen by incorporating them into the National Guard.
“Nobody could believe that the president of the pacification proposed the elevation to constitutional rank of the militarization that bled the country, but that was precisely what was established in the National Plan for Peace and Security 2018 – 2024 presented that 14 November 2018 ”, said Lisa María Sánchez Ortega, president of the organization.
“This is how the route of institutionalization of militarization and dismantling of the civil institutions that his government would follow was shown.”
Little by little he gave them more.
They went from combat to theft of fuel; to sell “little pieces” for the presidential plane raffle; from creating tree greenhouses for the Sembrando Vida program to being a key player in the distribution of the COVID vaccine – 19.
They recruited pipes, medical personnel and agents of the National Guard. They even monitored the distribution of free textbooks and fertilizers and social programs.
By March 2020, the Ministry of Finance announced the request for the creation of AIFA that would be consolidated last December. A that first company designed as a way for the military would be joined in recent days by the announcement of a second company to build sections 1, 6 and 7 of the Mayan Train, as well as the Tulum, Quintana Roo airport, plus the administration of the air port in
“ This is how we protect this work so that there is no temptation to privatize it and what better than leaving it to the Armed Forces and having the purpose of financing the pensions of sailors and soldiers. That is an objective ”, said the president in a public act.
The Mexican president justifies his support for the Armed Forces in the Organic Law of the Army, where it is established that it must contribute to the progress of the country. He has also relied on the legislature with a majority of his party to modify laws and regulations that allow the growing presence of the military in public life and the economy as well as its high budget.
For 2021, the Secretariat of National Defense will exercise its largest budget in history: 112 thousand 557 million pesos (around 55, 14 million dollars) that is, a 30% more than last year.
LONG HISTORY
The participation of the Army in the economic life of the country is a recycling. Raúl Benítez Manaut, analyst at the Center for Research on North America of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) states that the military actively participated in the construction of Mexico in the years 20 and 30.
However, the political stability after the revolution made it possible to create civil institutions to take on the tasks that the military did at first. “There was a very large cycle of demilitarization in Mexico that began in the year of 1940 and lasted until 2000 when all the military missions were transferred to civilian areas. ”
Then came the reincorporation to public security and the qualitative leap with Enrique Peña Nieto (2012 – 2018) who began to involve the Armed Forces again in infrastructure projects, although very marginal.
With AMLO as president, the Army began to appear. To begin with, they injected 44 millions of dollars to study the viability of the Santa Lucía Felipe Ángeles airport. The rest came in a cascade.
In 2020 the Ministry of Finance authorized 650 million for the construction of the first works of that airport; the Ministry of Welfare paid him for the production of timber and fruit trees, construction and equipment of forest nurseries.
Various states began to call them. The government of Mexico City gave them 44 million of dollars to build the General Hospital of Topilejo; The governments of Sinaloa and Querétaro acquired the fruit trees, thus displacing some local producers.
The same happened with private construction companies that were left aside when the Social Security Institute for the Armed Forces Mexicanas signed contracts for around 23. 5 millions of dollars with the military engineers for the construction of the Military Housing Units in the State of Mexico, Puebla, Veracruz, Baja California, Morelos and Sonora.
The Welfare Bank has also disbursed its share for the military to build 1, 751 bank branches to pay government social assistance and the Institute of Health for Well-being paid more than 200 million dollars to Sedena for emergency care of public health caused by the Covid epidemic – 19.
Enter other the sectors.
THE RISKS
Where most resistance to the military has been in ports. With a new law, the president wants to wrest control of the Ministry of Communications and Transportation to hand it over to the Navy and thus confront the corruption derived from organized crime that has found a door for smuggling drugs and chemical precursors for them.
The opinion that is in the Chamber of Deputies wants the coasts, ports and terminals of interference 100 Continental% move from civilian to military. Critics of the proposal point out that according to the Federal Law of the Sea and current international conventions, the military cannot perform functions. That trade is not their business.
The fact is that there is a lot of money involved, whether in the ports or beyond.
AMLO has said that in addition to security reasons it is about saving money with the interference of the army in its austerity plan and the economy, but some analysts consider that the dumbbell of the president and the armed forces is, rather, a win-win affair.
“Since 1917 the only thing that matters to the military is that the group of power in turn guarantees them economic and social exclusivities and the independence of their courts and institutions and the impossibility of being controlled by the US “, observed Rubén Cortes, political analyst, journalist and writer.
” AMLO allowed them that in exchange for what let the political system transform and economic of the p aís without getting involved and allowing them to do more business with the State. ”
Similar models have operated in countries such as Nicaragua, Venezuela or Cuba with controversial results. An audit of the firm Price Water House Cooper (PwC) revealed that in 2009, the Institute of Previsión Social Militar de Nicaragua had investments in Wall Street with capital from the companies it manages or has been awarded while have played an active role against the dissent of Daniel Ortega to perpetuate himself in power.
Another element of discord is drug trafficking. “The essential problem of putting the military in the economy is that they are the ones in charge of persecuting the narcos and to the final end in collusions created by narco-states. It has already happened in Venezuela ”, warned Cortés. “After that, it can only end with a military intervention.”
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