The Mexican Navy (SEMAR) opened a new naval base in the state of Nayarit on Mexico’s central Pacific coast in September 2024. SEMAR
THE WATCH STAFF
The Mexican Navy (SEMAR) inaugurated a new naval base in Nayarit in September 2024 that will host the Navy’s Marine Infantry Battalion No. 34, a search, rescue and maritime surveillance unit and a dredging vessel. The base is designed to increase security in a region increasingly frequented by international tourists and home to powerful transnational criminal organizations (TCO).
The new base, Boca de Chila, will cover an area with a burgeoning tourist industry centered on its pristine beaches. The sector will remain under the control of the 10th Naval Zone, which is based in San Blas. “This work is an example of the contribution of the sailors of Mexico to the development of our country, a work of the first order because it will mean surveillance, security for the entire coastal area of Nayarit, which has a great future, especially with tourism development,” said then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO.
The flagging ceremony and official opening of the base were attended by a high-ranking group of Mexican leaders. SEMAR chief Adm. José Rafael Ojeda Durán accompanied AMLO, who presided over the event. Also present at the September 28, 2024, ceremony was President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who assumed office on October 1. Regional political, educational and military leaders also participated, according to a SEMAR news release.
At 30,000 square kilometers, Nayarit is one of the smaller Mexican states. Bordered by Sinaloa to the north and Jalisco to the south, Nayarit has a long Pacific Ocean coastline, which has long been a center of drug trafficking to the U.S., according to the Mexico Violence Resource Project, a U.S. nonprofit funded by California universities. SEMAR chief Adm. Ojeda Duran said the base “in addition to allowing the maintenance of the rule of law in the area, contributes to the development of the Islas Marías Tourist Complex, functioning as a strategic point.” The Islas Marias are an archipelago off the coast of Nayarit, which was used as a federal prison until AMLO ordered its closure in 2019.
The Naval Infantry has assumed a large role in combating Mexican criminal cartels and TCOs in the past few decades. The base will provide housing for the Marine personnel and serve as a departure point for ferries to transport tourists to the newly developed Isla Marias tourism complex. AMLO said Sheinbaum’s decision to name Adm. Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles as the next SEMAR chief was a sound one, according to the Mexico Daily Post. “I got to know Adm. Morales because he was in charge of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec project. I know that he is an honest, hard-working man whom the president-elect has decided to appoint as Secretary of the Navy, so that the future of the government, the future of our country, is guaranteed,” he said.