MEXICO CITY -- Long in the background, the Mexican army finds itself under
increasing scrutiny as it is ordered to take on police work, border
patrols, anti-drug raids -- tasks that it has neither the training nor the
desire to do. President Vicente Fox has pledged "unconditional support" to
the military in asking it to fight crime, but he has also opened secret
files that have revived questions about the army's past role in hundreds of
deaths.

The combination has brought unusual and uncomfortable exposure to a
military that has spent most of the past half century walled off from the
scrutiny of politicians, reporters and the public.

"Politics is unfamiliar terrain for us," said Gen. Alvaro Vallarta, who is
on leave from the army while serving as a congressman. "The army doesn't
want to get into the political game."

Unusual for Latin America, Mexico's 240,000-strong military has largely
kept out of politics since the 1940s.

"There has traditionally been a quid pro quo, that the civilians stay out
of the military's internal affairs, and the military will subordinate
itself to civilian authority," said Roderic Camp, a political science
professor at California's Claremont McKenna College who studies the Mexican
military.

Traditions, however, are eroding. Fox's July 2000 election was a watershed
in a shifting Mexican political scene, the first change of a party in power
in 71 years.

Fox has opened secret files and named a special prosecutor who will look at
incidents involving the army, such as the 1968 massacre of about 300
students during a mass protest at Mexico City's Tlatelolco square.