The National Gendarmerie will be presented publicly in the parade commemorating Independence Day on September 16. So revealed Carlos Humberto Toledo Moreno, inspector general of the National Security Commission (CNS).
During his participation in the Fifth National Forum on Safety and Justice, organized by the National Network in Favor of Oral Trials and Due Process, he said the National Gendarmerie will start working immediately after the parade, although its work will be building quarters in order to prevent its members from having to sleep outside or in hotels, as was the case with the Federal Police.
"What will the gendarmerie do? What purpose will it serve? Initially, it will be made up of about 10,000 members from the military--8,500 soldiers from the army and 1,500 sailors from the navy," he said,He explained that this composition responds to the federal government's "urgency"; therefore,
"members that constitute the early stages of the gendarmerie force are taken [from the military], because selection, preparation and rapid adaptation could not be made with members who were not familiar with the issues of discipline, esprit de corps and dedication to service," Toledo Moreno said.This group will be placed
"in strategic areas or facilities, supporting places where there is no security. For example, there are many domestic airports where there is no Federal Police presence, and they need to be guarded. They have strategic facilities that are necessary for our development as a Republic, and they are going to be present there.
"The members of the gendarmerie will have fixed and mobile units. We are dealing with a very dynamic body that will support Federal Police functions, but will not invade their jurisdiction, which is clear. The Federal Police will be on the highways, in the cities. ... The gendarmerie will be located in places of strategic necessity, such as Pemex facilities or where, right now, the Army is present, but which has to leave to attend to work appropriate to the armed forces.
"The gendarmerie will be in conflict zones, which can be violent, or [attending to] a natural disaster. It will have units that can be moved around in order to support society."During his speech, Toledo acknowledged that being a policeman is not the same as being a soldier or a sailor. He justified this, saying,
"that is precisely why, right now, those who want to join the gendarmerie are being trained so that their military mentality is transformed, re-adapted to what police should have, one that is closer to the citizenry as a policeman."He said members of the gendarmerie "will have multiple functions", and confirmed information published in January by La Jornada, that initially this group "will have 10,000 police; and its level of forces will be increased progressively over the next six years, reaching between 40,000 and 50,000 members. It will be under the command of the National Security Commission, led by Manuel Mondragón y Kalb [who also directs the Federal Police].
According to the official of the Secretariat of Government Relations, the fact that the first members of the gendarmerie are military
"does not mean that those who follow or their commander will be military personnel. Perhaps the first commander of the unit will have to be [military] for obvious reasons, but this is likely to change as time passes."He said the Federal Police
"will not neglect the duties they currently have, but they are in the process of cleansing [evaluation of their trustworthiness]. They have to be transformed, like it or not, into what they ought to have been from the beginning: a unit of national civil protection, not a unit of individuals who found an easy way to be corrupted," he reiterated.Spanish original