TAMING ARMY A BIG CHALLENGE FOR NEXT MEXICO LEADER

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 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.

By any standard, Gallardo was a star. In 1988, at 42, he 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, some seemingly
petty, 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, and outgoing President Ernesto Zedillo
won't press the issue. Brig. Gen. Genaro Lozano Espinoza, a Defense Ministry
spokesman, said the case had been settled and he had nothing to add.

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.
"On the contrary, I've pointed out the urgent need to reform the military."

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

"I am optimistic about a resolution of my case after Fox takes office," said
Gallardo.

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

Much like in the U.S., 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.

"The Mexican armed forces never received the kind of scrutiny from the U.S.
that other militaries received in Latin America," said Joel Solomon,
research director for the Americas with Human Rights Watch in Washington.

"It was assumed that Mexico had a more progressive political discourse and
that the military merely was undergirding the stability of the country's
political and economic system."

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 and the guerrilla war in Chiapas state--have
shoved the army out of the shadows.

Its participation in the drug war, technically proscribed by the
constitution although generally applauded by the U.S., 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, including Mexico's own drug czar, Gen. Jesus
Gutierrez Rebollo in 1997, arrested less than three months after being
appointed. In August, two other generals were arrested on drug charges.

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

Internally, the army also has been discredited by its efforts against the
Zapatista guerrillas in Chiapas, and against other, smaller armed groups in
Guerrero and elsewhere.

"In Mexico, Chiapas has been viewed as a military response to political
dissidence," said Ted Lewis of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based
human-rights group and one of the publishers of "Always Near, Always Far,"
an analysis of the changing role of the Mexican military.

The military says there are 19,000 troops in the southeastern states of
Chiapas and Tabasco and that some are involved in environmental and social
projects. Other sources, however, estimate the troop strength at 50,000, at
an annual cost of $500 million, or nearly 22 percent of the total military
budget.

After the Zapatista uprising in 1994, there was wide initial public sympathy
for the rebellious indigenous groups, which admittedly have been exploited.

Then, fears that a toxic mix of narco-trafficking, guerrillas and
militarization was turning Mexico into another Colombia heightened public
criticism and scrutiny of the armed forces, according to Lewis.

No one suggests that the army may directly interfere with civilian
authority, as has been the case in other Latin countries. But 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 would like to get 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 has talked about a partial or complete military pullback from Chiapas.
Yet, some analysts argue that would be tantamount of conceding victory to
the guerrillas and publicly humiliating the army.

Fox's team also has floated the idea of getting the military out of the drug
war. The problem with this is that fighting the various Mexican drug cartels
is one of the highest priorities--if not the highest--in American 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 be onerous
undertakings that would take years.

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.

"The military elite has behaved as if their power was untouchable," he said.

With the all-powerful PRI a shambles and a new political order in Mexico
still taking shape, that privileged position by the armed forces may be a
thing of the past too.