MEXICO CITY — Mexican officials blamed the political opposition, corrupt federal police and outside players on Thursday for instigating a revolt by security forces who are opposed to being absorbed into the newly created National Guard.
Federal police maintained control of a command center in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa for a second day and snarled traffic by blocking highways outside the capital. Meanwhile, in the southern border state of Chiapas, they hung signs expressing support for their colleagues.
The protesting federal police are demonstrating against a plan that dissolves the force and incorporates it into the Guard, which has now been deployed to seal the country’s porous southern border and control immigration and crime.
López Obrador previously attributed the protests to “dark forces” and suggested there were ulterior motives without explaining his accusation. But security secretary Alfonso Durazo offered further details Thursday, suggesting that former President Felipe Calderón was among those responsible.
“Some of the visible leaders of the movement are not members of the institution,” Durazo said. “They are people tied to interest groups who have profited from million (peso) contracts for the purchase of unused gasoline and technology among many others.”
Durazo accused some of those now defending the police — like Calderón — as being the same officials who did not develop it as an effective security force.
“If the federal police was a sufficient and adequate entity we wouldn’t have the levels of insecurity that we have today,” he said.
He also accepted some responsibility by saying that communication may have been insufficient as the government rushed to do away with the agency.
In response to concerns that police would lose their seniority or be out of a job if they didn’t join the Guard, he said that no one would be fired or have their benefits eliminated.
He also rejected any suggestion that National Guard members seen near the striking police were intending to provoke them.
Still, police continued to dissent as protests stretched on.
Officer Julio Nueva Rios said López Obrador had characterized the federal police as contaminated, corrupt and inefficient and urged others around Mexico to join the strike.
“They want to turn us into soldiers when we’re police,” he said.
He also denied the suggestion that police had been manipulated by political forces.
“We’re purely federal police,” he said. “There’s no politician. There’s no party.”
Mexico is experiencing the highest number of killings in at least 20 years, though the rate of the homicides has stabilized in recent months.
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Associated Press journalist Jorge Barrera in Mexico City contributed to this report.
