Reuters
December 27, 2001

A senior Mexican army officer has dismissed the need for a human rights ombudsman, despite mounting reports detailing atrocities committed by officers and soldiers over the past three decades.

A recent government report on Mexico's 1970s "dirty war" against leftist groups said at least 275 people were illegally arrested, tortured and "disappeared" at the hands of the security forces. President Vicente Fox has promised a full probe and the criminal prosecution of those responsible. Washington-based Human Rights Watch has urged Fox to assert civilian control over the investigation of military human rights abuses and end impunity for army members.

At present, rights abuses by the Mexican army can only be investigated in military courts. But the army is adamant that the current system does not require change. "We military are judged for military crimes by military judges. But that doesn't mean they are going to favor or help us," Brig. Gen. Javier del Real Magallanes, 56, told Reuters. "I would say military justice is as or more severe than civilian justice," he said in an interview this week.

Del Real, deputy chief of staff, has served in the 150,000-strong Mexican army for 42 years. He said protection of human rights was a cornerstone of the institution, noting that all soldiers must carry a pocket-size booklet on rights in their bags. "They can accuse us of anything but not of violating human rights," he said, and dismissed calls for supervision by an independent watchdog. "Tell me a country where there's an ombudsman for the military?" he commented.

In a case that has become a cause celebre among rights groups, Gen. Jose Francisco Gallardo was jailed by a military court in 1993 on charges of embezzlement and defamation a month after he published an article criticizing the army's rights record and calling for an ombudsman to investigate abuses. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Army not infallible

"I'm not going to tell you the Mexican army is one of white doves. It's like white rice -- you always find grains of black rice but fortunately they are few," he said. Del Real said the "dirty war" was invented by the press. "Here in Mexico there was an unfortunate phenomenon where there was a fight between groups and people died," he said. But the rebels were criminals "and action had to be taken against criminals. If (ordinary) people were affected, it's regrettable but it was a question of circumstances."

Human rights groups have pointed to army involvement in several high profile cases such as the 1968 massacre of at least 300 student protesters, the killing of 17 peasants in 1995 in rural Guerrero and more recently, the murder of Digna Ochoa, a prominent rights lawyer, in October this year.

However, many doubt Fox has the will or clout to go after powerful army culprits or even to reform the institution. The army had been widely expected to be a target of Fox's democratizing zeal after he ousted the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in July 2000 elections.

But little appears to have changed within the self-policing institution that some say is untouchable in Mexico.

Del Real said the army had modernized and become more open in its dealings with the media but that all armies had secrets for national defense purposes. It took its orders from Fox. "We have absolutely nothing to hide," he said, but noted: "The army can't be democratic because it would stop being an army. It operates along the lines of discipline."

Drug war

After his election on a ticket of change, Fox promised to withdraw the army gradually from the drug fight. But the army continues to employ some 30,000 troops in eradicating drug crops and tracking down traffickers.

Activists want the army out of the drug war, arguing it's unconstitutional to use the army for activities other than defense. The army says the drug war affects national security.

Del Real said he envisaged that the army might no longer be needed in the fight in about five years time but for now the nation's police forces were ill-equipped for the battle alone.

"I think that in future as the economy improves and the bodies responsible for fighting drug trafficking are restructured, it will be possible for the army to leave the fight and return to its normal activities. But I don't see it as viable for the near term," he said.