Yes. The point here is that as of the entry of Felipe Calderón as president, the military--where the public is concerned--has always been considered a temporary sort of thing, but we have never been told when the army is going to withdraw from the streets. What we see here is that far from increasing the capacities of police officers, we see greater involvement of the military in public safety, but also in the civilian sector. This is of concern to us.
Just recently there was an action plan that was presented for between five and ten years by the head of the armed forces so continuity would be given to the participation of the army in the battle against drug trafficking. What we see here is that in order to strengthen this participation--that is, to give legal status to a function that de facto is carried out by the army in tasks that apply to it.... As you've said, they apply to police officers.
In this regard, we have encouraged that emergency legislation be presented so that we can ask new questions. First of all, is there a clear strategy? It's a delicate matter, but ten years, for example, might be an exception, because the plan was set out for ten years and we have seen that there haven't been substantial improvements, as far as training of police officers is concerned. We don't have efficient police officers who can appropriately fight organized crime.
How much time will it take to consolidate an appropriate strategy, a broad strategy, by means of which there will be true participation of the citizens, to go from public security--which is conceived as a state matter--to security or safety that's also in the hands of the citizens, with open dialogue between the police officers and the citizens? It seems to me that this is a pending task.
There has not been a consolidation of police bodies in an efficient fashion. The time period set out in this package that has just been presented not only indicates a lack of information about the situation, but the hope to make something temporary into a permanent situation. This appears to be very risky for us, because to approve of this--a permanent interference of the military--could bring about as a consequence greater or more violations of human rights.
Here also the question is, can we fight against illegality from the point of view of illegality? At least this is the way we have seen this, due to the number of violations of human rights committed by military personnel. We have documented this. Also, the National Commission for Human Rights has done this. What's most serious is that these measures, as well, do not apply to a democratic society.