In a revealing case, Mexico's army has elevated
repression, camouflaged in legalisms, to an art form. If
not for the fact that its victim an outspoken general
has been imprisoned for more than three years, the charade
would qualify as comedy.

Jose Francisco Gallardo is a man not easily silenced. A
gifted athlete, he rode, ran, swam, fenced and shot his way
to seventh place in the pentathlon at the 1968 Olympics.
Twenty years later, he became Mexico's youngest brigadier
general.

From then on, his account and the official story
diverge. According to Gen. Gallardo, he was invited to join
in highlevel military corruption, refused and was
punished. According to the Mexican army, the general fell
into corruption and was punished.

What is undisputed is that since 1988, army prosecutors
have opened no fewer than 16 preliminary criminal
investigations and eight fullblown criminal cases against
the general. The charges range from misappropriating funds
to libeling the army. Except for two cases still dragging
on, every case was dropped for lack of evidence, thrown out
by civilian courts, or ended in a finding of not guilty.

Seven times civilian courts ruled in favor of his
challenges to prosecutions before military courts. But no
sooner would they throw out one case, than the military
would pop up with a new charge, so that the general could
never get himself cleared.

Gallardo did not get the message. In 1993 he wrote an
academic paper, later published by a magazine, arguing that
Mexico's army needs a human rights ombudsman. The general
did not get his ombudsman, but he did get what now amounts
to more than three years of pretrial imprisonment.

By early 1995, convinced of the army's capacity to
outfox his country's civilian courts, he turned to the
InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights of the
Organization of American States in Washington. He
complained of violations of his liberty and due process,
among other rights protected by the American Convention on
human rights.

Normally, international bodies cannot secondguess
national prosecutions. Until there is a trial, who can say
whether the general is guilty or innocent of the latest
charges?

But in an opinion on Gallardo's case published earlier
this year, the InterAmerican Commission made an exception.
It is unreasonable, the Commission ruled, for so many cases
to have been brought against the general, one after another
over a sevenyear period, especially when he has been
acquitted in every case so far. Finding Mexico responsible
for abuse of power and harassment of the general, the
Commission recommended that he be freed immediately and
compensated for the violations of his rights.

Commission recommendations, however, are not binding. If
the case came from almost any other Latin American country,
the Commission could have sent it to the InterAmerican
Court of Human Rights for a binding decision.
Unfortunately, Mexico has not accepted that court's
jurisdiction. (Nor, shamefully, has the United States.)

So the legal counsel to the Foreign Ministry has
announced that Mexico will not heed the Commission's
ruling. We don't find the irregularities the Commission
mentions," the counsel told The New York Times. This is
simply a case of a corrupt military officer."

The time has come for this comedy to close. In a decade
when the military is being given increased power to run
everything from the Mexico City police to Mexico's war on
drugs to the Cancun International Airport all in the
name of cleaning up civilian corruption the case of Gen.
Gallardo is no laughing matter.