Enrique Peña Nieto Says Michoacán Militia Members Could Become Mexican Police

La Jornada reports that during a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto held out the possibility that members of citizen militias which took up arms last year against the Knights Templar drug cartel in the state of Michoacán could become police officers. The Mexican president was in town in an attempt to promote Mexico to foreign investors following the passage of a series of reforms intended to liberalize and modernize the country’s economy.

“The case being pointed to recently is Michoacán in particular, where autodefensa groups, as they’re called, are located or have been located, and some of them have genuinely been organized to defend against the incursion of organized crime,” Peña Nieto told Klaus Schwab, president of the Forum. “The State has responded, first by convening those who genuinely want to participate in security duties, making sure they do so attending to the principles and formality foreseen by the law, and fulfilling the requirements to be part of the security corps.”

“And, on the other side, the federal government has fully entered the municipalities in the state of Michoacán where there is institutional weakness, where the public security corps in the municipalities are weakened and in some cases co-opted by organized crime,” he added. “In no way” had the government allowed the militias to take over security duties in the state, he said, despite having agreed to collaborate with them. While acknowledging that the question of public insecurity still posed a “great challenge” to Mexico – adding that the same applied for much of Latin America – the Mexican president pointed to statistics indicating rates of homicide related to organized crime have fallen 30 percent, calling it an “encouraging” sign.