Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday April 18, made statements accusing the US Department of Defense of spying on the Mexican military after American leaks showed alleged intelligence about the Mexican Army and Navy.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, accused the Pentagon (the American Department of Defense) of spying on the Mexican military. He has stated that he will start classifying information from his own armed forces in order to protect national security and avoid any such future incidents.
The Pentagon leaks
This came to pass in the aftermath of vital classified Pentagon documents being leaked online by an Air Guardsman in Massachusetts. The leaked documents among other things talked about combat numbers in Ukraine as well as military dynamics in Mexico.
It is the latter that President Obrador is in an uproar about. His comments come after the Washington Post a few days ago reported on apparent tensions between the Mexican Army and Navy. It cited a US military briefing among those in the leaked classified records.
“We’re now going to safeguard information from the Navy and the Defense Ministry because we’re a target of spying by the Pentagon.” Obrador said.
The American response
A spokesman from the Pentagon responded by stating that the US Department of Defense “has a strong collaborative defensive partnership” with Mexico’s Army and Navy, with them tackling common challenges “while respecting each other’s sovereignty and respective foreign policy agendas.”
The Pentagon has also officially called the leak a “deliberate, criminal act.” It has not only affected relations with Mexico but has created problems with the leakage of information regarding the War in Ukraine, as well as classified information about other countries such as Israel and the UAE (United Arab Emirates).
Even then, the article in the Washington Post itself has not stated the origin of the information in the leaked briefing. It has stated that there is no indication that the information could have come from intercepted communications of Mexican military officers.
Lopez Obrador has called this information in the leaked documents an “abusive, overbearing intrusion that should not be accepted under any circumstance”. This is a strong response from a country that has historically been a staunch US ally. He added later that he did not plan to rebuke the US officially but would discuss, “conditions for collaborative work”.
The Mexican Army and its issues
Lopez Obrador, who has been ruling since 2018 has come under immense pressure to resolve and reform the decades of corruption in both the government and the army. He has come under major criticism to hold the military accountable for many alleged cases of abuse over the years including extrajudicial killings and displacement. Even in face of such criticism he has in fact given the Army a greater role in public safety and intends to put the National Guard which is an armed police force, under the Army.
The Army in Mexico is an institution that through years of corruption, as well as funding and support due to the War on Drugs, that has become fairly powerful inside the country. It has not had to face political repercussions for many of the alleged cases of abuses. The Mexican drug cartels are also alleged to have infiltrated or at least compromised the Mexican military structure. One of the most violent Cartel gangs, called Los Zetas was in fact originally founded by Commandos from the Mexican Army who defected to the Cartels.
Obrador has not been very successful in countering this institutionalized corruption, and his decision to classify information hints at further cracks in the Mexican military apparatus. It is to be seen what impact these leaks have on US-Mexican relations.
