AMLO’s legacy marks the succession in Sedena

MEXICO CITY (Process).– Given the upcoming announcement of the cabinet of the virtual president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) opts for two profiles based on the security obligations of the Army and its incursion into new activities assigned to them by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Among the 29 Major Generals from whom the next head of the Army may emerge, there are two names that have been mentioned the most inside and outside military circles; both belonging to the current military leadership.

One is the Undersecretary of National Defense, General Gabriel García Rincón; the other, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the National Defense, General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo.

Both division members, graduates of the General Staff, have operational and administrative experience, but among those who favor the undersecretary of National Defense they assure that he is the “trusted man” of the current secretary, General Luis Cresencio Sandoval, who according to the tradition in the Army, he must leave office on September 30, once the government ends.

Sandoval would cease to be the High Command of the Army five months after turning 65, when the military retires.

General García Rincón is also the president of the Board of Directors of the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), one of the new spaces of control in the public administration that López Obrador granted to the military.

63 years old and belonging to the Infantry Arm, the undersecretary has operational experience as commander of the Special Forces Air Group (GAFE) in the Seventh Military Region, in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, commander of the GAFE of the High Command in Mexico City, commander of the 49th Infantry Battalion in La Paz, Baja California Sur, commander of the 11th. Infantry Battalion in Temamatla, State of Mexico, and commander of the Second Military Zone in Tijuana and the 34th Military Zone in Chetumal, Quintana Roo.

To his training at the Higher War School and the National Defense College, he has added courses in Panama (Pana-Jungla Teribe) and in the United States: infantry at Fort Benning, the Inter-American Defense College, the College of the Armed Forces and Intelligence College.

In administrative positions he has been Inspector and Comptroller General of the Army and Air Force and senior officer of the Sedena.

Creator of the GN

General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, of the Cavalry Weapon, has also been very close to General Sandoval and in projects of interest to President López Obrador, such as the creation of the National Guard, a military body that until now is formally part of the Ministry of Security, but whose organization and operation depends on the Army.

General Trevilla, 62 years old, is the first chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the National Defense, a position created during this administration in February 2022, and which is defined as the immediate collaborator of the High Command in the planning and operation of activities. on the ground and in the air of the Army.

In 2023 he was appointed commander of the parade column and its General Staff on the 113th anniversary of Independence.

His operational experience includes command of the 43rd Military Zone, in Apatzingán, Michoacán; the command of the Military Garrison in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and head of the Command Group of the Fifth Motorized Cavalry Regiment and Military School of Motorized Cavalry.

He also has training at the Army War College and the National Defense College and courses abroad, including the Basic Course for Military Intelligence Officers at the School of the Americas, in the United States, and the Problems of International Politics at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Federal Republic of Germany.

He has been director of Social Communication at Sedena and deputy military and air attaché at the Mexican Embassy in Germany.

Other division members who are mentioned are General Andrés Fernando Aguirre Osunza, director of the National Defense College; General Francisco Leana Ojeda, commander of the Third Military Region, based in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, and General Julio Álvarez Arellano, commander of the Sixth Military Region, in Puebla.