'OUTSIDER' PRESIDENT'S INAUGURATION MEANS CHANGE FOR MEXICO

MEXICO CITY -- There used to be an untouchable triad in Mexican society:
the ruling PRI party, the military and the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The Virgin is still safe. The two other icons, however, are undergoing
dramatic transformations that will affect Mexico and the United States as
economics and politics bring the two countries closer.

In December, Vicente Fox, the first president from outside the historically
dominant PRI, will take office. It is likely to mark the beginning of a
period of change as well for Mexico's secretive -- and largely
unaccountable -- military.

"It will be an interesting process to follow because the military doesn't
trust Fox, and he doesn't know much about or trust the military," said Raul
Benitez-Manaut, a researcher at National University of Mexico in Mexico City.

Unlike other armies in Latin America, Mexico's has supported the president
and the political order faithfully in exchange for nearly complete autonomy.

"The PRI in effect has functioned as the son of the military ever since the
party was founded in 1929," Benitez-Manaut explained.

Until 1946, all Mexican presidents were military officers. After that, some
of the PRI's leaders also have been military men. Likewise, the secretary
of defense is not a civilian but an army general.

Military budgets remain largely a mystery, and Congress rubber-stamps
whatever appropriations the president submits.

The case of Brig. Gen. Jose Francisco Gallardo, who has spent about seven
years in prison, illustrates the incestuous relationship between the
executive and the military -- and why it is likely to change.

In 1988, at 42, Gallardo became one of the youngest brigadier generals in
the army. Then he made a disastrous academic choice: In a graduate school
thesis, he argued that an independent ombudsman ought to investigate
human-rights abuses by the military.

In 1993, he was prosecuted for a laundry list of crimes and sentenced to 28
years in prison.

Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
have declared Gallardo a prisoner of conscience and pressed the Mexican
government for his release. But the military won't back down. Brig. Gen.
Genaro Lozano Espinoza, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said the case had
been settled.

On a telephone interview from prison, Gallardo said the army has offered
him a pardon if he admits to one -- any one -- of the charges against him.
"I won't accept a pardon because I haven't committed any crime," he said.

Fox vows to re-examine the case and make a decision within three months of
taking office.

Such scrutiny, foreign or internal, of the Mexican military is a recent
phenomenon.

Much like in the United States, the Mexican Constitution limits the armed
forces mostly to the defense of the country from external threats. But the
army has been deployed for internal security campaigns and to stifle
dissent. In the 1970s, the armed forces were involved in a bloody "dirty
war" against guerrillas in the state of Guerrero that reportedly killed
hundreds of real or suspected insurgents. And in 1968, when streets
protests threatened to disrupt Mexico City's Olympic Games, the army fired
on a group of students, killing as many as 300.

But the gradual political opening under President Carlos Salinas in the
early 1990s -- in addition to the Gallardo case, Mexico's deeper
involvement in the narco-trafficking morass -- has shoved the army out of
the shadows.

Its participation in the drug war has turned out to be a bad bargain.
According to military spokesman Lozano, about 17 percent of this year's
$2.3 billion military budget will go to anti-narcotics operations. But the
armed forces have gotten mired in the same net of bribes and corruption
that had snared other Mexican anti-drug warriors.

Narco-trafficking continues to flourish, but 10 high-ranking officers have
been indicted on drug charges.

Despite the meager results and the corruption scandals, the United States
has welcomed the deployment of the Mexican army in the drug war, as other
law enforcement units were discovered to be tainted.

Changes in the relationship between Mexico's military and its civilian
leaders are in the offing.

Gallardo and other critics propose the appointment of a civilian defense
secretary, establishment of a joint chiefs of staff instead of the current
independent commands, aggressive legislative oversight of military budgets
and operations, and independent investigations of human-rights abuses by
and within the military. He also wants the army out of police and narcotics
work.

For Mexico, such a reform package would be nearly revolutionary.

During his campaign, and since his victory in July, Fox and his advisers
have given mixed signals regarding what the new president intends to do.
Fox's team also has floated the idea of getting the military out of the
drug war. The problem is that fighting the various Mexican drug cartels is
one of the highest priorities in U.S. policy with regard to Mexico.

Fox's plan also would involve the creation and development of an
alternative anti-narco force, or retooling the local and state police
forces that earlier were discredited by corruption charges; both would take
years.

Yet Marco Vinicio Gallardo, son of the jailed general, said change already
is taking place in the military. He said many of the younger officers
privately have supported his father's struggle for a more open military
establishment.