 |
|
|
 Editorials | February 2007 
Calderón's Close Ties to Military a Concern
 Chris Hawley - arizonarepublic.com
| | Mexican army soldiers salute during a ceremony to mark the Day of the Army at a military base in Tula, Mexico, Monday Feb. 19, 2007. During the event, President Felipe Calderon announced a 46 percent salary increase for the soldiers, who are becoming increasingly involved in the country's war against drug traffickers. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) |
Many Mexicans thought it odd when their new president, an economist with a degree from Harvard, showed up at a military ceremony wearing olive-green fatigues like a young Fidel Castro.
Politicians have kept Mexico's secretive, suspicious military at arm's length for decades, so President Felipe Calderón's attire on Jan. 3 seemed a strange gesture. But it was just the beginning.
In recent weeks, Calderón has elevated the military's profile like few presidents in recent memory, doling out 46 percent pay raises, heaping praise on the army and navy, dispatching troops to quell drug-related violence and lending 10,000 soldiers to the federal police.
The initiatives are part of Calderón's crackdown on crime, but the president's new coziness with the military has caused much debate in Mexico. In the past, presidents with close ties to the military were authoritarians who used troops to quash dissent. Embracing the military makes many Mexicans uneasy.
"It's unusual, it's surprising how he's trying to strengthen the morale of the military forces," said Raúl Benítez, an expert on military affairs at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Calderón has thrown the spotlight on a military that is a mystery even to its friends, one that shuns international exercises and is so worried about self-reliance that it makes everything from guns to sleeping bags in its own factories.
By all accounts, the military could use some attention. Its 236,913 service members are poorly paid, and many of its weapons systems are out of date. In the past five years, 99,767 soldiers have deserted.
But some analysts feel the president is making a mistake by giving the military more law enforcement duties. They fear such assignments could lead to corruption among soldiers, human rights violations and an arms race as drug traffickers adopt more firepower to match the soldiers.
"This poses some long-term problems," said Jorge Luis Sierra, an author who writes about the Mexican military. "By using the military so much, Calderón is exposing it to new risks."
Mysterious military
In the Army and Air Force Museum in Mexico City's colonial center, silver plaques describe five centuries of uphill battles fought by Mexico's military: from the 1519-21 Spanish conquest to the 1846-48 U.S.-Mexican War and the 1914 U.S. occupation of Veracruz.
To this day, Mexican military cadets are taught that the United States, with an active-duty military that is six times larger, is Mexico's main foreign threat.
"It is the axis of the military ideology," Benítez said.
Mexico does not allow the United States to keep troops on its soil, and it does not work with the U.S. Northern Command, formed in 2002 to defend North America. But if its relationship with the United States is prickly, the military also has a delicate relationship with Mexico's own citizens.
Mexico spent much of the 19th century under military dictators, then 71 more years under authoritarian presidents who sometimes used force against dissidents. Many Mexicans still have not forgiven the military for the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, in which troops and police killed at least 200 demonstrators.
Recent governments have taken a hands-off attitude toward the military. Mexico is one of the few Latin American countries where the defense secretary is an army officer, not a civilian.
Anti-drug work
The note was found in a grove of marijuana plants. In badly spelled Spanish, it begs soldiers not to destroy the field.
"I'll give you whatever money I can if you will please leave it," the note says. "If you would like a bull, I can bring one to wherever you are as collateral while I try to get the money."
Clearing marijuana and poppy fields, destroying clandestine airstrips and inspecting highway traffic for drugs have been the military's main assignment since 1966. At a public exhibition this week, army officers showed off notes left by marijuana farmers, confiscated gas tanks modified to carry drugs, and a diorama showing a raid on a drug-smuggling plane.
Calderón has expanded this anti-drug role. Within days of his Dec. 1 inauguration, he dispatched 7,000 federal police and soldiers to quell drug violence in Michoacan state. That was followed by military and police raids in Tijuana and Acapulco, then the "Golden Triangle" marijuana-growing region of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua states. On Sunday, the government sent 2,035 soldiers to stem violence in the border states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.
"We will fight the enemies of the nation across our entire territory, and we will beat them, and the perseverance of our effort will be crowned with victory," Calderón told an assembly of soldiers Monday.
Calderón has also said he will lend 10,000 soldiers to civilian police agencies. That is more than twice the 4,891 troops that Presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox loaned to the police from 1998 to 2006.
Some analysts worry the military could become a crutch for Calderón.
"Putting the military in there to strengthen the police units kind of detriments efforts to strengthen the police forces themselves," said Maureen Meyer, associate for Mexico with the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank.
To reward the troops, Calderón on Monday announced raises on a sliding scale, with privates receiving the biggest pay hike, 46 percent. The President's Office could not say Friday how the raises would affect the military's $4 billion budget.
Close relationship
Calderón and the military have also been exchanging an unusual amount of public flattery lately, analysts say.
"In his speeches, Calderón systematically renders tribute to the armed forces in a more ample manner than other presidents," said José Luis Piñeyro, a military expert at Mexico City's Autonomous Metropolitan University.
Calderón may be trying to discourage unrest by opponents who say he won the July 2 election through fraud, Piñeyro said. On Feb. 9, Defense Secretary Guillermo Galván, a four-star general, delivered a speech that repeatedly affirmed Calderón's "constitutional legitimacy" and pledged the loyalty of the military.
Calderón attended the ceremony wearing the presidential sash, a symbol of authority that is usually only worn during inauguration, during the State of the Union address and on Independence Day.
"It's not difficult to imagine the seriousness of the danger this country would fall into if the armed forces did not do everything to back the chief executive," Galván said.
Reach the reporter at chris.hawley@arizonarepublic.com. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us