Mexico's Peña Nieto unveils police unit, much smaller than envisioned

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-police-20140823-story.html



Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto delivers a Mexican flag to an officer of the nation's newest police force, known as the gendarmerie, during the launching ceremony Friday for the new force at the Federal Police headquarters in Mexico City.

Mexico's Peña Nieto unveils police unit, much smaller than envisioned
By Tracy Wilkinson, Cecilia Sanchez
8.22.2014

When he was running for election in 2012, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto offered a new police organization, the gendarmerie, as a cornerstone campaign promise and his only security initiative. It was to be a 50,000-strong, independent paramilitary force that would tackle Mexico's toughest crimes.

On Friday, after much delay, Peña Nieto unveiled a much-scaled-back gendarmerie.

It is instead a 5,000-member unit of the federal police that will focus on economic crimes. It will work as a kind of rapid-reaction force, Peña Nieto said, that will be deployed around the country to hot spots as needed. The gendarmerie will be used to protect businesses, tourist areas and harvests of limes, sorghum and other crops, often targeted by drug and crime cartels that extort money from businesspeople and producers with threat of death.

The diminished version of the new corps underscores criticism that Peña Nieto is unable to come up with security strategies that are truly innovative and wants to minimize all discussion of security and violence.