Crime and tourism Alarm at civil role of army in Mexico

package holiday promises to whisk tourists in the Yucatan Peninsula from plush hotels to Mayan ruins on a new airline and freshly-laid train tracks - an adventure brought to them entirely by the Mexican army, which now does luxury tourism when not fighting crime.

- Thomas Graham

That an institution with a history of human rights violations must learn the art of customer service is just the strangest aspect of a deeper trend, as Mexico's military plays an ever-greater role in the country's civil administration, with alarming implications for its democracy.

Yesterday the full route of the Mayan Train opened, a year after it was partially inaugurated by the then president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, amid criticism over its environmental impact and economic viability.

Lopez Obrador had turned to the army to have the railway built along with airports and hotels along the tracks, all of which it will run.

Between trains, planes and checkpoints, the Mexican army has perhaps never been so ubiquitous.

Experts mark two key moments in the development of its presence in public life.

The first came in 2006 with the start of the "war on drugs", when the army was deployed to fight organised crime groups and took on a far greater role in public security.

The second came in 2018, when the leftwing populist Lopez Obrador became president.