Section I
United States Militarization of Mexico
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Introduction: History of U.S. Marauding
It is not surprising that the United States has had a history of interest in the internal politics of Mexico, a vast country immediately to its south. The 1846-1848 mismatch, referenced as the "Mexican War" by U.S. politicians and historians, concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which annexed over half of Mexico's land mass, equivalent in size to western Europe. All or parts of 10 U.S. states were created from this annexation: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Kansas, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, and California. In Mexico, the armed annexation of its northern region in 1848 is still felt as a deep scar and a maiming of its sovereignty.
Overall, there have been at least 11 documented U.S. military interventions into Mexico since 1836. There have been over 110 documented U.S. military interventions into nearly two dozen Latin American countries since 1831; and over 400 documented interventions into 100-plus nations since 1798. However, post-Vietnam U.S. hegemonic policies now tend to intervene through various insidious "low intensity" warfare strategies, while continuing to support local counterinsurgencies when they suit "our interests." Passage of the National Security Act of 1947 launched the active Cold War with creation of the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. Since then there has been a demonic, almost incomprehensively repressive, pattern of direct involvement of the United States in the systematic and brutal commission of overt and covert political, cultural, civil, and human rights violations throughout Latin America (and the world). There have been at least three dozen major interventions into over 20 Latin American countries since the late 1940s.
The common thread of this systematic intervention pattern has been to contain, repress, or eliminate, no matter what it takes, local efforts of self determination, i.e., desires of peoples to be independent of U.S. foreign (economic) policy objectives. The means of intervention used to enforce U.S. foreign policy objectives include such diabolical methods as: orchestrating coups; planning assassinations; providing extensive military training in counterinsurgency and "low-intensive" warfare techniques, including torture and other methods of terrorism; providing
various land, sea, and air pieces of military equipment; providing direct military aid; conducting disinformation campaigns; supplying all the clandestine and dirty tricks capacities of the CIA; etc. This has been the dependable documented record of U.S. policy in the region. Local elites in the political and business world, generally with the support of their military forces, have been the official recipients of this massive U.S. support, assuring a style of domestic "stability" that is pleasing to only a minority of the respective populations. For the vast majority, these policies have meant increasing misery, repression beyond the belief of most U.S. citizens, and anguishing numbers of premature deaths due to politically motivated murders, preventable malnutrition and curable disease.
New Era of Security Linkages Between Mexico and the United States
As Mexico moves ever closer to the "neoliberal," "First World" economic model advocated/mandated by the Western corporate vision, security linkages between Mexico and the United States have become nearly inseparable. Historically low levels of U.S. military and security assistance to Mexico began to change during the early 1980s as Mexico implemented virtually all of the "structural adjustment" policies mandated as a condition for financial relief from her debt crisis. Much of the aid to Mexico's military and police agencies has been provided under the auspices of anti-drug campaigns, even before the 1980s.
Between 1982-1990, Mexico leased or purchased more military goods and services from the United States under all categories of assistance (Foreign Military Sales/FMS, Commercial Sales, Excess Defense Sales, and International Military Education and Training program/IMET) than it did in the previous 30 years.1 Sales or leases of military materiel from the U.S. to Mexico totaled only $29.5 million from 1950-1978. In contrast, the U.S. provided more than $500 million under all categories of military assistance from l982-1990.2
Now that Mexico is part of NAFTA, and Mexico is experiencing new demands for democratization and justice from its Indigenous and poor which threaten the "tranquillity" of the investment community, the security ties between the U.S. and Mexico have become very tight indeed. On October 23, 1995, then--U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry visited Mexico's military high command, accompanied by then-General Barry McCaffrey, head of the U.S. Southern Command and now U.S. President Bill Clinton's drug czar. Perry touted the emergence of a new security agreement that complemented the already political and commercial cooperation. Perry was quoted, "When it comes to stability and security our destinies are inextricably linked."3
A report published by the Federation of American Scientists revealed that between 1984-1993 Mexico obtained 10 times more U.S. arms than it accumulated between l950-1983.4 U.S. military aid provided to Mexico during the period 1982-1990 included F-5 aircraft, Bell 212 helicopters, C-130 transport planes and other aircraft, excess jeeps and light trucks, various communications equipment, and spare parts for U.S.-origin vehicles, planes and naval craft. In addition, Mexico leased UH-1H helicopters.5 And the U.S. sold or licensed $750 million worth of military equipment to Mexico's various security forces between l982-l992, according to researcher Peter Lumsdaine with the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, California.
Expansion of Aid Under the Bush Administration
From 1988-1992 the U.S. exported over $214 million in military equipment to Mexico's army and police, some 16 times more than Mexico's second place arms supplier, France.6 But it hasn't just been military assistance that has defined the new relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. Under U.S. President Bush, then--CIA director William Webster warned in 1989 of increasing unrest and coup plotting in Latin American countries, and declared that in a post-Cold War era a bipartisan policy was necessary to support covert actions, including election support of friendly candidates, in the region. He particularly identified Mexico as an object of "far more attention than it has been in the past."7
A U.S. Department of Defense report for fiscal year 1992 declared that the U.S. wanted from Mexico a "secure, stable, and friendly" neighbor who would look increasingly to the United States for directions and dependency relating to military and international policies. This included an "apolitical" military.8 An earlier DOD report described the intention of U.S. military programs to Mexico as "expanding U.S. influence in the Mexican military."9
An October 1989, U.S. State Department Bulletin identified Mexico's then (pre-NAFTA) strategic interests to the U.S.: a 2,000-mile common border that is the primary entry point for drugs coming to feed the U.S. demand, and the fact that Mexico is the second most important source of strategic raw materials, especially petroleum, strontium, fluorspa, and antimony.
Prior to the critical date, January 1, 1994 (when NAFTA became effective and the Zapatista uprising occurred), modernization of Mexico's security forces was becoming ever more obvious. In the early 1990s the U.S. began supplying a number of helicopters, both to the Mexican Attorney General's office which has had jurisdiction over the drug war, and to the Mexican armed forces. A 1994 Mexican Attorney General report identified an aerial fleet that included a variety of 47 U.S.-made Bell helicopters and 13 Cessna observation planes. A number of Mexican mechanics were authorized to be trained in the U.S. to maintain the new helicopters. In addition, the Mexican armed forces by early 1994 possessed 48 helicopters, at least 20 of which were U.S. Bell helicopters, and six sophisticated Blackhawk transports, as well as a number of smallerobservation planes.10 Thus, by early 1994, Mexico had at least 95 helicopters.
Assistance in 1993 included millions of dollars worth of U.S. Huey and Bell helicopters along with C-130 Hercules transport planes which were used against the Zapatistas during the January 1994 uprising.11
A La Jornada article (Aug. 21, 1995) printed a chronological list of military equipment and sophisticated armaments acquired by the Mexican government from 1988-1994. The list included over 7,000 bulletproof U.S. Hummer armored troop transport vehicles, 78 helicopters, 78 fixed-wing planes, 1,615 machine guns, nearly 3,300 flame throwers, 360,000 grenades, and 266 electric prods. The latter have been traditionally used as part of interrogations/torture sessions by repressive regimes. The list included 1,500 other types of military vehicles, 1,000 parachutes, and hundreds of thousands of articles of field equipment such as combat rations, helmets, flack vests, canteens, night vision equipment, etc.
Mexican and U.S. Governments Knew in Advance of the Zapatista Uprising
The Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, on January, 1, 1994, the same day NAFTA went into effect, demanding genuine democracy, protected justice, and cultural autonomy, was a shot heard around the world. Though it appeared to take both Mexico and the United States by surprise, in fact both governments knew as early as 1992 about the existence of insurgent groups, including the Zapatista army, in Southern Mexico. Each government intentionally withheld this information because of a fear that if the U.S. Congress knew of Mexican instability from Indigenous insurgencies, ratification of NAFTA would be threatened.12
Intensification Under President Clinton After NAFTA
After January 1, 1994, the stakes in Mexico dramatically increased. NAFTA had become law but the Indigenous uprising calling for genuine democracy and justice throughout Mexico immediately sent chills of fear through the hearts and minds of politicians, economists, and investors. Mexico's capacity to be a fully active participant as a trading partner with the U.S. and Canada was threatened. Investor confidence was thrust into anxiety due to insurrectional activities that potentially could be beyond the capacity of the Mexican government to adequately contain or "neutralize."
Shortly after the Zapatista uprising in 1994, it is known that there were conversations between officials of the Mexican and U.S. governments at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City about the need for development of counterinsurgency strategies.13
Professor John Saxe-Fernandez, who teaches economics at Autonomous University in Mexico City and studies U.S. economic interests in Mexico, has suggested that, following the uprising, the U.S. Department of Defense encouraged the Mexican military to focus on counterinsurgency rather than continue the more traditional philosophy of the past. He cites the transfer of several thousand U.S. military vehicles to Mexico in early 1994 for use in jungle areas, and discusses active U.S. encouragement of changes in Mexico's command and intelligence structure and missions.14
Creation of the Mexican army's "Rainbow Task Force," a specially trained unit to combat the Zapatistas, was known to exist at least since August 1994.15 And it has been reported that the Mexican Department of National Defense developed a comprehensive counterinsurgency plan for Chiapas as early as October 1994, a plan that included training paramilitary groups, "eliminating" the Zapatistas, censoring the media, and muting the effects of human rights and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).16 See Section IV, "Militarization and Repression in Mexico."
Two months before Mexico's tense 1994 summer elections were to be held, President Clinton hurriedly issued export licenses for $64 million in additional military equipment under the Direct Commercial Sales programs, plus $14 million for aerial forces that included four satellite-guided UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, for a total of $78 million, to bolster Mexico's security forces.17
Several Associated Press reporters witnessed 23 tanks and nearly 300 tons of war materiel being unloaded on the Vera Cruz docks in l994. In the spring of 1994 there were additional reports of anti-riot vehicles and armored cars with water cannons being transported across the U.S.-Mexican border.18
An even more serious threat to Mexico's participation as a "First World" trading partner occurred when her overvalued currency virtually collapsed in December 1994. Mexico's stock market and banks, and Wall Street speculators and World Bank theorists, desperately needed a bailout to preserve not just Mexico's economy, but the the health of the world financial system. The newly deregulated global economy has become more acutely vulnerable to high-risk consequences from short-term speculation as panic-stricken currency speculators move funds instantaneously, electronically, from country to country beyond the control of any government.
A January 13, 1995 Chase Bank memo, leaked to the press, called for the "elimination" of the Zapatistas because of their perceived threat to the security (for investors) of Mexico. (See reference below in subsection, "Telling Statements.") By the end of January 1995, the economy was worsening to the point of total bankruptcy. President Clinton realized the serious economic threat to more than Mexico. He quickly began to seek
billions of dollars of relief for Mexico from a skeptical U.S. Congress. It became clear that Congress was going to reject the bailout request. Clinton apparently understood the high stakes involved from a different perspective than Congress. He utilized a little known currency stabilization fund under his discretionary authority to loan outright $20 billion to Mexico. He helped orchestrate another $32 billion from international lenders led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Though this bailout infuriated Congress, Clinton publicly argued that his plan would avoid a world financial crisis and promote U.S. jobs and billions of dollars in U.S. exports. Mexico's technocratic ruling class became indebted to Clinton and the U.S. in ways that many Mexicans deeply resent.
In one sense, this bailout can be viewed as a fatal blow to Mexico's struggle to maintain her sovereignty, which was already compromised by the economic restructuring that began in the early 1980s and had escalated more in the 1990s. The receipt of such a massive unprecedented financial bailout from without has come at great cost to her independence.
Certainly the President of the United States is never going to risk lending billions of U.S. dollars, against the wishes of Congress, without feeling confident of success. Any kind of domestic insurgency that threatens the confidence of outside investors from pouring funds into Mexico's economy absolutely had to be contained, or eliminated. Thus Clinton must have utilized all the resources at his disposal to assess the capacity of Mexico to contain the Indigenous insurgencies, especially since the newly elected President Zedillo had only been in office three weeks when the peso collapsed. Was the Zedillo administration, including his military and security forces, strong enough to preserve the "stability" of an emerging "First World" economy? If not, what resources of the United States could be added to the equation to assure Mexico's capacity to have an effective counterinsurgency plan? Now we have initial answers to these questions.
Counterinsurgency
Recently declassified documents from the U.S. State Department and Pentagon, published in the January 22, 1998 issue of Mexico's El Financiero, disclose the leading role of the Pentagon, since as early as January 1995, in directing Mexico's military and counterinsurgency strategies against the Zapatistas. At the time of the infamous January 13, 1995 Chase Bank memo and the subsequent January 30 Clinton bailout of the Mexican economy, the U.S. was concerned that Mexico's new President Zedillo was politically and militarily weak. Zedillo quickly responded by ordering a major military offensive on February 9 into all of the known Zapatista communities--only 10 days after Clinton's $50 billion bailout. However, Zedillo acknowledged at that time that the Mexican military was ill-prepared for prolonged counterinsurgency jungle warfare.
The disclosed documents indicate that the Pentagon urged Mexico to contain (encircle) the Zapatistas militarily while the government negotiated with a Zapatista leadership which, by the Mexican government's design, would be increasingly divided and weakened. The Zapatistas were to be "politically neutralized." The goal was that eventually the worn down Zapatistas would agree to "peace" on the government's terms. Apparently there was never any intention for an authentic peace process and agreement, just as the Zapatistas have reported all along from experiencing the government's behavior.
In the meantime, the declassified documents referenced above reveal that the U.S. would continue to increase armaments and training for the Mexican military, apparently so their forces would be equipped for prolonged jungle warfare, if necessary. By 1999, there are to be several thousand Mexican elite troops trained in "anti-narcotics operations." Most military specialists readily acknowledge, however, that this training is equally applicable to counterinsurgency operations.
Meanwhile, Mexico's October 1994 counterinsurgency plan, which included significant destablizing operations from the created, trained, and armed paramilitary forces, apparently was launched in January or February 1995 with the recruiting of the first paramilitary group in northern Chiapas within the protected encirclement of the Mexican military and public security forces. This coincided with Zedillo's surprise military offensive on February 9, 1995 into all communities perceived as sympathetic with the Zapatistas. Zedillo was beginning to respond with a plan that would make the Clinton administration feel confident of a secure Mexican political economy. This confidence we now know was and is greatly nourished by substantial U.S. ideological, financial, military, counterinsurgency, and intelligence direction and support. The Mexican military forces have been continuously occupying and surveying these suspected Zapatista communities to this day.
A U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General's report reveals that the United States military has spent millions of dollars over the past few years in increased surveillance and interdiction efforts in Mexico without any reduction in the flow of drugs into the U.S. The report discloses that the portion of the federal drug budget designated for military surveillance has quadrupled over the past five years.19
It is common to use the excuse of fighting the drug war in order to mount counterinsurgency operations. To repeat: Most military specialists know this as a matter of fact. There is a fine line that distinguishes the two goals. Col. Warren D. Hall, Staff Judge Advocate to Gen. Barry McCaffrey when he was SOUTHCOM Commander, admitted as much in an internal memo:
It is unrealistic to expect the military to limit use of the equipment to operations against narcotraffickers . . . The light infantry skills U.S. Special Operations forces teach during counter drug deployments . . . can be used by . . . armed forces in their counterinsurgency as well.
Hall also admitted that U.S.-supplied equipment "may be used in counterinsurgency operations during which human rights violations might occur."20
A June 1996 U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) report offers evidence that the Mexican government misused U.S. military equipment intended for drug interdiction. Instead, the report indicates that U.S. helicopters were used to transport Mexican troops to the January 1994 uprising areas in violation of the transfer agreement. Many Indigenous campesinos were killed during those operations.21 The GAO also suggested that the U.S. was complicit in the misuse through very casual oversight.
Though the United States has dispatched military aid to Mexico under the pretext of fighting the drug war, that officially articulated line may be eroding. The U.S. State Department in 1996 assured the Zedillo Presidency in Mexico that arms shipments did not have to be exclusively used in anti-drug operations. The State Department informed the Mexican government that the U.S. "aviation advisors" would only inspect the location and condition of the helicopters once a year and would always provide advance notice of their visits.22
However, a September 20, 1996 letter to then--Secretary of State Warren Christopher from 15 U.S. Congresspersons cited abuses of U.S.-provided helicopters to Mexico. Human rights violations and counterinsurgency operations are identified as violating bilateral transfer agreements. The Congressional letter requests close monitoring of the use of helicopters in Mexico. Apparently, in response to that letter, the State Department has informed Mexico of a more stringent plan to monitor use of helicopters--regular visits without prior notice.23 The seriousness of this oversight remains to be seen as pressures mount to contain the several insurgencies in Mexico.
Meanwhile, U.S. military aid and surveillance grows more pervasive and sophisticated. U.S. spy planes, called "Condors," equipped with infrared sensors and silent flight capacity, have been utilized in southern Mexico since May 1994 and are being used to detect EZLN command posts.24 By 1996 the Mexican government acknowledged that for the first time it is allowing U.S. security agencies to fly over Mexican territory.25 Satellite images and aerial photography can identify the remotest centers of population.
There is evidence that the United States is urging Mexico to develop extensive computerized data banks to aid in monitoring domestic security efforts. The U.S. State Department recently allocated $250,000 for computer equipment, training and software for development of information systems.26
Advances in electronic and satellite surveillance have been identified as one of the most critical, post--Cold War devices for the Pentagon in its ongoing efforts to monitor conflicts and to expedite military intervention when "needed."27 It is known that the United States shared electronic intercept data and other satellite information about Chiapas with the Mexican government after the 1994 uprising.28
It is now known that, prior to the Mexican army's February 9, 1995 invasion into and occupation of the Zapatista communities, U.S. intelligence services actively assisted in determining the alleged identity of Zapatista leader Subcommandante Marcos.29
There have been reports, though as yet unconfirmed by the sometimes less-than-vigilant U.S. press, of U.S. advisors present in Chiapas. A Major John Kevin Kord and Lt. Col. Alan Hassan Sanchez were identified by a Chiapas news organ, El Norte (Feb. 12, 1995). A U.S. Lt. Col. Propp was identified as part of a covert operating unit by La Brecha de Uruguay (Oct. 28, 1995), which also alleges that the U.S. Army is acting as intermediary in bringing Argentinean mercenaries to work with paramilitary groups in Chiapas. Zapatista commanders have reported sightings of men working with the Mexican military and paramilitary groups who wear U.S. military insignia.30
In September 1996, the Mexican daily, El Financiero, obtained 264 secret documents from the Pentagon under the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA). These files disclosed that Mexico has been receiving support from military advisors from the United States, Guatemala, Argentina, and Israel in its efforts to repress the active Indigenous organizations and their solidarity networks. Presence of U.S. military advisors during the February 1995 invasion are suggested in the papers.31
Throughout 1995, there were occasional news reports of movement of more equipment from the United States to Mexico. The New York Times (May 23, 1995) reported that Mexico's U.S.-supplied military helicopter fleet could be nearly doubled to almost 200 by Pentagon transfers, including several dozen state-of-the-art Blackhawk choppers. In September there were reports of Mexico's purchase of $7 million worth of U.S. radar equipment, plus additional money for acquisition of 12 more Huey helicopters.32 On December 5, 1995, 25 military vehicles from the U.S. were observed crossing the Mexican border at Ciudad Juarez.33
The 1996 Military Agreement Between Mexico and the United States
On April 23, 1996, Mexico's Defense Chief, General Enrique Cervantes Aquirre, visited then--U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry in Washington, D.C. where Aquirre received a full honors arrival ceremony. It was only the second official visit ever of a Mexican Defense Secretary to the United States.34
A major agreement was signed that included transfer of an additional $50 million worth of military equipment and substantially increased training. The list of equipment included 73 Huey helicopters to the Mexican Air Force along with spare parts, pilot training and maintenance equipment. In addition, 30 Huey helicopters were to be given to the Mexican Attorney General's office specifically for the drug war, even though at the time of agreement the State Department had indicated that these helicopters need not be used exclusively in the war on drugs.35
The 1996 military aid package also included four C-26 reconnaissance planes, 500 more armored personnel carriers adding to their existing fleet of well over 7,000, sophisticated night vision and electronic command and control equipment, global positioning satellite equipment, additional radar units, plus supplementary supplies of semi-automatic rifles, grenades, ammunition, flame throwers, gas masks, field rations, etc.36 The aid package also authorized the training of Mexican soldiers in "counter narcotics" tactics at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.37 The first 20 Huey choppers were shipped in cargo planes from Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, in November 1996.38
The new Ejercito Popular Revolucionario/Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) insurgency that erupted during the summer in seven southern Mexican states caused more nervousness and renewed U.S. resolve to assure its repression.
James Jones, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico and former president of the New York Stock Exchange, told the Mexican press on September 9, 1996 that the United States was prepared to offer Mexico additional military aid, intelligence, training, and exchange of information to fight the "terrorists" in Mexico. "All the Mexican government needs to do is ask. Whatever they need, we will certainly support," Jones was quoted as saying.39
Military Training, Especially Counterinsurgency
One of the primary sources of U.S. military assistance since World War II has been through the International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). The IMET provides "professional" military training for selected foreign military personnel both at U.S. and overseas facilities.
Mexico sends more military personnel to U.S. training programs than to those of any other country, greatly enhancing U.S. influence over the Mexican military. Until recently, IMET has been the major source of direct U.S. military assistance to Mexico. Many of the IMET programs include, in addition to professional military education, maintenance courses at U.S. schools and training in anti-drug efforts.40
From 1950-1978 only 906 Mexican military personnel participated in military training programs, an average of about 31 Mexicans per year. However, from 1984-1992, the U.S. trained at least 512 Mexican military students, an average of 57 per year, nearly a doubling of the rate at which Mexico was previously sending students for U.S. training.41
The infamous SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS (SOA), founded in 1946 in Panama but moved to Ft. Benning, Georgia in 1984, has trained 600 Mexican military officers from 1946-1994. It is believed that approximately 500 military and police from Mexico studied "drug training" at the SOA in 1995-1996. Mexico also furnishes a number of instructors at the SOA.42
Since the 1994 uprising in Chiapas, Mexico has contributed more military personnel for training at the SOA than any other Latin American country.43 A number of Mexican generals have now been identified who have been trained at the SOA. Some of the courses they have completed: jungle operations, commando staff, irregular warfare, joint operations, and patrol operations. Many of these graduates are leading the counterinsurgency operations against the Indigenous in Oaxaca, Chiapas, and other southern Mexican states.44 One of the graduates, Lt. Col. Julian Guerrero Barrios, has recently been criminally charged with kidnapping and homicide by torture along with 13 other officers and 15 soldiers.45 This unit is a member of the Air Mobile Special Forces Group (known by its Spanish acronym, GAFE), an elite counterinsurgency force whose leaders are being trained at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina (described below). Thus, the U.S. taxpayers have paid for special trainings at two different schools for Col. Guerrero and others like him, and, although both U.S. schools claim their respective curricula include substantial human rights components, the U.S.-trained GAFE units have been accused of 16 human rights abuses in just one three-month period in 1997 alone in the state of Jalisco.46
The Pentagon finally admitted in 1996 that training over the years at the SOA included practices such as execution of suspected insurgents, extortion, physical abuse, coercion, and false imprisonment.47 For years various groups of campesinos, human rights and church workers, among others, have been identifying various military personnel carrying out brutal acts of repression throughout Latin America. Research has now revealed that a number of the nearly 60,000 graduates participated in some of the worst human rights crimes and massacres in the post-WWII period. The school's nickname has become School Of Assassins.
The 1996 military agreement between the U.S. and Mexico dramatically increased the amount and types of U.S. training of Mexican military personnel. Several thousand Mexican officers and soldiers began new trainings in summer 1996 at 17 military bases throughout the United States.48 Mexican helicopter pilots are training at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, in night vision combat and intelligence operations. Intelligence training is provided at Bolling AFB in Washington, D.C. Helicopter mechanics are being trained at military bases in San Antonio, Texas. As already mentioned, record levels of Mexican officers are in training at the SOA at Ft. Benning, Georgia, learning U.S.-style methods of running "effective" military forces.
However, the most specialized and perhaps most important training is being conducted by the U.S. Special Forces (Green Berets) at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. This is where the mutually agreed upon need for Mexico to develop a strong counterinsurgency capability is being advanced. Field training preparing the leadership of the specialized elite airmobile counterinsurgency units (GAFE) is currently underway. Through a series of intensive 12-week programs, including courses in helicopter assault tactics, explosives, rural and urban warfare, and operational intelligence gathering and planning, graduates return to Mexico to, in turn, train rapid reaction groups of about 100 men each. As of February 1998 these graduates had already trained 42 100-man operating units assigned as needed throughout the 12 regions and 40 zones that comprise Mexico's military logistical command structure.49 The U.S. training continues to be rationalized as part of the "war on drugs" despite the fact that the trainers are specialists in counterinsurgency warfare, and officials acknowledge there is no special distinction about drug training.50 This training apparently emerged from the Pentagon's concerns expressed in January 1995 about weakness of the Mexican military in light of the Zapatista insurgency, as recently revealed through the referenced declassified documents. As mentioned earlier, the Pentagon has given Mexico 73 Huey UH-1H helicopters and four C-26 surveillance planes to facilitate specific air assault capabilities for these newly trained troops. U.S.-appropriated funds for training these special forces, $28 million in 1997, for example, have been provided under a provision that gives the Pentagon wide discretion in spending the money with virtually no Congressional oversight.51
Well equipped elements of these 90- to 100-man GAFE units have been reported operating in and around various Indigenous communities in Chiapas with night surveillance capabilities. They were reported present in Acteal, Chiapas, on Christmas Day, just three days after the grotesque massacre.52
There is yet more! U.S. military officials claimthat a more invisible program supporting Mexico's counterinsurgency program (for "fighting drugs," of course) may be the most important. CIA officers are training,
equipping, and providing operational support for a special force of the Mexican army called the Center for Anti-Narcotics Investigations. This unit is comprised of 90 specially selected officers who will be among the leaders in planning and carrying out raids and surveillance against primary suspects.53
WARNING ABOUT COUNTERINSURGENCY!
U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine had its origins during the Eisenhower administration when the decision was made to clandestinely overthrow the democratically elected Arbenz government in Guatemala. Arbenz was instituting major land reform which impinged upon U.S.-owned United Fruit company's dormant plantations. Eisenhower interpreted this as Soviet-dominated influence wreaking havoc with the dependency of U.S. capitalist interests on exploiting "our Banana Republics" at will. However, it wasn't until President Kennedy was elected that counterinsurgency strategy became formally established in 1961, at its home base at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, with the Special Forces school operated by and for the Green Berets. Since the first Green Berets were dispatched to Vietnam in May 1961, use of counterinsurgency doctrine by the United States as part of its foreign policy has become known for the terror it imposes and the fear it instills working to "contain" insurgencies.
In a real sense the U.S. government has become addicted to counterinsurgency and its related "low intensity" warfare strategies that, with the help of camouflaged units such as the Green Berets, the Navy Seals, the CIA, and, often, the Agency for International Development (AID), seek to assure that "friendly" governments conduct successful anti-guerrilla military operations to destroy "Communist-led" revolutions in limited wars, while initiating social and political "reforms" and economic "progress."54 The only thing new about this habit is that presence of post--Cold War "drug traffickers" and sometimes "terrorists" have replaced old Cold War "Communists" as the pretext justifying intervention to preserve U.S. economic interests, now defined in terms of protecting a "free" market in a global economy.
The historical record reveals that U.S. counterinsurgency ideology, resources, and training have already assisted in devastating popular movements in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, among others, in this Hemisphere alone. When the U.S. has deemed it important to overthrow governments perceived as a threat to profit and development interests, the doctrine is reversed and insurgents (versus supporting counterinsurgent forces) have been created, funded, trained, and armed, such as in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Panama. When all else fails, the U.S. will not hesitate to launch direct military force as it did in Panama in 1989.
Indonesia's most feared counterinsurgency forces, called Kopassus, have imposed their illegal occupation of East Timor with a brutal and systematic campaign of torture and assassination against the resisting natives. U.S. Special Forces (Green Berets) have been training the Kopassus for a number of years in one of the most repressive campaigns in the post--Cold War period.55
Thus, this new comprehensive counterinsurgency training for, and then by, Mexican military officials is a haunting omen for the people of Mexico. Nowhere can the U.S. government identify where U.S. counterinsurgency planning and training has led to genuine democratic processes and protected justice for the majority poor who struggle against great odds for survival with dignity. Patterns of repression and increased violations of human rights, often of a grotesque nature, can be documented over and over again! Neither President Zedillo nor President Clinton seem to show genuine concern for the alarming brutality of the increased repression in Mexico, the intensity of which is attributable to the unaccountable nature of counterinsurgency warfare. Zedillo is blaming the Indigenous for the violence,56 and Clinton has shown nothing but support for Zedillo57 as the Mexican President continues policies that terrorize Indigenous communities while doing nothing to demilitarize the region or disarm the many PRI-sympathetic paramilitary groups operating with almost total impunity.
Presence of FBI and CIA
Of course the CIA has field stations in almost every U.S. Embassy in the world. Ex-CIA agent, Phil Agee, wrote in his book, Inside the Company, that for years Mexico City's CIA station has been the largest in Latin America. Agee used to work out of the Mexico City CIA office. Former CIA officers Ralph McGehee and John Stockwell also identify a major CIA presence along the Mexican-Guatemalan border. In addition to field agents, the CIA, working with other intelligence operatives, utilize radar stations and fly-over satellite intelligence.58 In San Cristobal there have been reports of CIA field agents' presence at different hotels since 1994, including a Mr. Symington of the famous Missouri Symington family.
Since President Reagan, the FBI has been authorized to operate in foreign countries to protect the rights and interests of U.S. citizens. The FBI now has offices in a number of countries, including Mexico, where it maintains one of its largest foreign offices, with approximately 10 staff. Allegedly the FBI agents develop strategies against "organized" crimes,59 and actively train Mexican police and intelligence forces.60 On December 9, 1997, the FBI conducted trainings in Oaxaca, Mexico, for various Chiapan (and other states') police forces, only 13 days prior to the brutal December 22, 1997 massacre at Acteal, Chiapas, where local police forces have been implicated. Topics at the training included "use of necessary force" to protect society, methods for "fighting drugs," and "management of crises and kidnappings."61
In November 1996 a U.S. health volunteer was present in Oaxaca City where local demonstrators were distributing leaflets.62 The leaflets were being distributed by people from towns in the region of Los Loxicha, Oaxaca, who were protesting a series of repressive actions carried out against them by the Mexican police and army, and various paramilitary forces. The leaflet identified the latest "incursion" against them as having occurred on November 7 when men identified as United States FBI agents participated as advisors in a terror campaign against their communities. The leaflet describes a series of violent arrests and searches without warrants, torture and beatings of suspects, presence of police and goon squads wearing ski masks, disappearances and murders, robberies committed by police, death threats by shooting, use of attack dogs, and the menacing use of low hovering helicopters. A reign of terror is portrayed wherein physical and psychological repression are used by Mexican military and security forces with the advice of FBI agents against the poor Indigenous who live in "extreme poverty."
The people of the communities from the region of Los Loxicha articulated in the leaflet that they are not "terrorists" or members of the EPR insurgent group. They stressed that they are simply organizing themselves together for relief from poverty and repression. They also explain that the local people expelled the corrupt political bosses from their communities about 10 years ago, but that the expelled bosses continue to operate in the region with the proceeds from narcotics trafficking.63
Telling Statements: Insensitivity to Social Conditions and Hints at Military Intervention
Political leaders in both the United States and Mexico were seriously alarmed by the Zapatista uprising and its threat to the political "stability" necessary for the profitability of the new "free" market economics.
Evidence is mounting that the United States government is preparing contingency plans for direct intervention into Mexico. A 1994 Pentagon briefing paper declassified under the FOIA said it was "conceivable that deployment of U.S. troops to Mexico would be received favorably if the Mexican government were to confront the threat of being overthrown as a result of widespread economic and social chaos." Cooperation of Mexican authorities with U.S. intelligence is cited as necessary to identify threats to Mexico's internal stability.64
Donald E. Schultz, professor of National Security at the U.S. Army's War College has declared: "A hostile government could put the U.S. investments in Mexico in danger, jeopardize access to oil, produce a flood of political refugees and economic migrants to the north. And under such circumstances the United States would feel obligated to militarize the southern border."65
A U.S. contingency plan to contain possible larger waves of immigrants provides military logistical support to the United States Border Patrol, training exercises by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), detention of immigrants at deactivated U.S. military bases, and construction of more concrete barricades along the border.66 The FBI has about 200 agents assigned to the southwest border and recently requested funds to add 54 more agents to their border presence.67
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger has recently written a book, The Next War (co-authored with Peter Schweizer), in which he suggests that war with Mexico is a possible scenario in the year 2003. He cites the reasons: out-of-control massive migrations to the United States driven by domestic and social unrest. He concludes that poor U.S. human intelligence (HUMINT) despite superior satellite intelligence prevents the U.S. from sufficiently understanding the political minds and policies of Mexico. His scenario outlines the need for a rapid three-pronged military invasion, nicknamed "Operation Aztec," to control domestic unrest and to stem the influx of millions of immigrants to the United States. Weinberger's prediction of an invasion follows a failed bid by 60,000 U.S. troops at the border designed to militarily stop the waves of immigrants.68
There is evidence that in fact the United States lacks adequate "human intelligence" and genuine understanding about the history and the depth of unrest in Mexico. Former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher visited Mexico on behalf of President Clinton on May 7, 1996, at which time Christopher lauded the May 5 peace agreement signed in Guatemala as "the last internal conflict in Latin America."69 He made no mention of the active conflicts in Chiapas, Mexico, nor did he discuss active insurgencies in Peru and Colombia.
The Wall Street Journal reported that "none of the Clinton administration's top foreign policymakers have concentrated intensely on Mexico." Further, the Journal quoted Riordan Roett, Latin American chair of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: "There's no one with a real brief on Mexico . . . The real Mexico watchers are at the Treasury Department."70 It is not surprising that experts on economics are directing the Clinton administration's policies with Mexico. However, these "experts" undoubtedly do not understand the relationship of social conditions to long-term political stability necessary for sustained economic health. Nonetheless, President Clinton has chosen to pursue the proven U.S. policy of funding repressive forces against the cries of the poor who simply demand protected justice and genuine democracy.
Recently the San Francisco Chronicle quoted a U.S. Senate staff member who regularly deals with the State Department: "I don't think the administration is focusing at all on Mexico's underlying social problems . . . They reacted [to the EPR] just by focusing on stability."71 The EPR (Revolutionary Popular Army) erupted as a new insurgent group in the summer of 1996 in seven of Mexico's southern states.
Col. Rex Applegate, who for 15 years worked as a sales representative for U.S. military and police equipment companies in Mexico, has stated that a modern revolution in Mexico would be a disaster for the United States. He confirms the conclusion that "vital" U.S. security interests require an economically and politically stable Mexico. He identified U.S. concerns about Haiti and Cuba as "pale by comparison" to the seriousness of assuring Mexico's "stability."72
The now famous January 13, 1995 Chase Bank (intended to be secret) memo, mentioned above, communicated to its investor clients in the United States and Mexico the urgent concern perceived about the Zapatista insurgency in Mexico. "The government will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the national territory and security policy," the memo declares.73 The threat to the investor interests and elite in Mexico is by extension a threat to corresponding U.S. economic (and therefore political) interests. This memo articulates the real object of U.S. military and economic aid to Mexico: maintenance of political stability, no matter the severity of the methods or threat to Mexico's sovereignty, so that investor confidence in profitability can be virtually guaranteed. The war on drugs is clearly not the primary object of U.S. military aid to Mexico. It is simply a convenient cover.
President Clinton's January 30, 1995 bailout, coming just 17 days after disclosure of the Chase Bank memo, suggests again where the United States stands on the structural issues that affect the majority of the people in Mexico and the world: The U.S. supports the wishes of the minority Haves (Chase Bank and its clients, for example), who insist on maintaining their privilege while ignoring and repressing the fundamentally reasonable cries of the majority Have-Nots (such as the Zapatistas and other Indigenous in Mexico and elsewhere). Not surprising!
Conclusion
The United States and Mexico are now inextricably connected, not just for political and economic issues, but for the necessary military and security alliances. These are necessary to maintain the political "stability" that in turn is necessary to assure economic profitability. The tragedy is that the new global corporate colonialism that NAFTA promotes and legally requires, deepens and expands the amount of poverty and misery that affects the majority of the Mexican people.
Transnational and transborder corporations now have the power to force national governments to defend corporate interests whenever such interests are in conflict with those of the people whose interest the governments have been elected to protect. With Mexico, the United States is again sliding down the slippery slope of intervention into the sovereignty of another nation of people. The military and security aid from the U.S. preserves the interests of the elite at the expense of the people. This is again an unconscionable and immoral policy that threatens to drag the U.S. into another shameful quagmire.
Section I Endnotes
1. Tom Barry, ed., Mexico: A Country Guide (Albuquerque, NM: The Inter-Hemispheric Resource Center, 1992), p. 332.
2. Barry, p. 332; La Jornada (June 30, 1989); Department of Defense, Congressional Presentations For Security Assistance Programs, 1983-1992.
3. La Jornada (Oct. 24, 1995).
4. Nuevo Amanecer Press USA/Mex (Nov. 2, 1996).
5. Barry, p. 332.
6. El Proceso (Dec. 12, 1994).
7. Los Angeles Times story published in San Francisco Chronicle (Feb. 9, 1989).
8. Department of Defense, Congressional Presentation for Security Assistance Programs, FY 1992, p. 217.
9. Department of Defense, Congressional Presentation For Security Assistance Programs, FY 1989, p. 248.
10. La Jornada (June 15, 1996).
11. National Catholic Reporter (Feb. 1994).
12. "Mexico Knew In 1992 of A Threat," The Boston Globe (Jan. 12, 1994); 97 declassified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents reported in Mexican weekly, Proceso (May 11, 1997).
13. "U.S. Considers Military Aid to Mexico in Wake of Revolt," San Francisco Chronicle (February 14, 1994).
14. John Saxe-Fernandez, "The Chiapas Insurrection: Consequences for Mexico and the United States," International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 8, No. 2.
15. Ninety-seven declassified U.S. DIA documents reported in Proceso (May 11, 1997); Los Angeles Times (Jan. 19, 1997).
16. Sunday, January 4, 1998 Mexican weekly magazine Proceso story by military reporter Carlos Marin, reported via AP story published in Santa Cruz County Sentinel (Jan. 5, 1998), and reported in "Political Shakeup for Chiapas," San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 8, 1998).
17. Lora Lumpe, Armed Sales Monitoring Project of the Federation of American Scientists, (202) 546-3300; Peter Lumsdaine, researcher, Resource Center for Nonviolence, Santa Cruz, CA.
18. AP story published in The Sunday Republican, Springfield, MA (Aug. 7, 1994).
19. St. Clair (Jan. 14, 1997).
20. "Funding Drug Dealers and Human Rights Abusers," Covert Action Quarterly (Winter 1996-97), p. 5.
21. St. Clair (Jan. 14, 1997).
22. La Jornada (May 17, 1996).
23. La Jornada (Jan. 15, 1997).
24. La Jornada (Sept. 19, 1996).
25. La Jornada (June 15, 1996).
26. La Jornada (Sept. 20, 1996).
27. Los Angeles Times (Oct. 30, 1992); Voice of America radio broadcast (Apr. 24, 1996).
28. San Francisco Chronicle (Dec. 10, 1996).
29. The New York Times (Feb. 10, 1995).
30. Joanne Calkins, Santa Cruz, CA, interview with Zapatista commanders (Nov. 27, 1996).
31. Referenced in Global Exchange Report, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas (Nov. 1996).
32. La Jornada (Oct. 24, 1995); The New York Times (Sept. 24, 1995).
33. Diario de Juarez (Dec. 6, 1995).
34. Mexico City Times (Apr. 24, 1996).
35. La Jornada (May 17, 1996).
36. La Jornada (Sept. 20, 1996); St. Clair (Jan. 14, 1997); San Francisco Chronicle (Dec. 10, 1996).
37. Los Angeles Times (Jan. 19, 1997).
38. St. Clair (Jan. 14, 1997).
39. AP Story (Sept. 9, 1996); San Francisco Chronicle (Dec. 10, 1996).
40. Barry, p. 333.
41. Barry, p. 333.
42. Phone conversation with Roy Bourgeois and Linda Hodge, School of the Americas Watch (Jan. 16, 1997).
43. Darrin Wood, "Mexico Practices What School of the Americas Teaches." Covert Action Quarterly (Winter 1996-97), p. 40.
44. Wood, pp. 40-42.
45. "Killings Linked to Mexican Army Unit," San Francisco Chronicle (April 4, 1998); January 12, 1998 Letter from Joseph Kennedy concerning Graduates of the School of Assassins in Mexico, discussed by Darrin Wood, Nuevo Amenecer Press--Europe (NAP-E), January 20, 1998.
46. "Killings Linked to Mexican Army Unit," San Francisco Chronicle (April 4, 1998).
47. Wood, p. 38; Dana Priest, "Army Manuals Advocated Torture, Execution." The Washington Post story published in Albuquerque Journal (Sept. 22, 1996).
48. "U.S. Helps Mexico's Army Take A Big Anti-Drug Role," The New York Times (Dec. 29, 1997); "Mexican Soldiers Given U.S. Army Training As Anti-Drug Commandos," Washington Post story published in San Francisco Chronicle (Feb. 27, 1998).
49. The New York Times (Dec. 29, 1997); San Francisco Chronicle (Feb. 27, 1998); San Francisco Chronicle (April 4, 1998).
50. Ibid.
51. San Francisco Chronicle (Feb. 27, 1998).
52. "Clinton's 'Interference' in Mexico," by Darrin Wood, NAP-E (Dec. 28, 1997).
53. The New York Times (Dec. 29, 1997).
54. Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennet, Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), p. 375.
55. "An Island Lives In Fear: Indonesian Regime Subdues East Timor With Torture and Killings," San Francisco Chronicle (March 3, 1998); "U.S. Training of Indonesian Troops Goes On Despite Ban," The New York Times (March 17, 1998).
56. "A New Optimism on Ending Graft in Mexico City," The New York Times (Feb. 12, 1998).
57. Alejandro Nadal, "Terror in Chiapas," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (March/April 1998), p. 23; San Francisco Chronicle (April 4, 1998).
58. Peter Lumsdaine, researcher, Resource Center for Nonviolence, Santa Cruz, CA.
59. El Financiero (Nov. 6, 1994).
60. St. Clair (Jan. 14, 1997).
61. "Clinton's 'Interference' in Mexico," by Darrin Wood, NAP-E (Dec. 28, 1997).
62. Chris Fink, student at University of California at Santa Cruz, served as a health volunteer in Chiapas for 5 months in 1996, and observed the Oaxaca City demonstration on Nov. 18, 1996, while traveling as a tourist.
63. Leaflet distributed during demonstration in Oaxaca City, Nov. 18, 1996.
64. La Jornada (Aug. 31, 1996); Jeffrey St. Clair, "US-Mex: The 'Drug War' Against the Zapatistas," Inter Press Service, English Wire (Jan. 14, 1997).
65. La Jornada (Dec. 6, 1995); St. Clair (Jan. 14, 1997).
66. El Financiero (Nov. 12, 1995).
67. La Jornada (May 17, 1996).
68. Caspar Weinberger and Peter Schweizer, The Next War (Wash., D.C.: Regnery Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 163-213.
69. "U.S. Sees 'Americas At Peace' After Guatemala Accord," Mexico City Times (May 8, 1996).
70. "Brutal Rebel Group In Mexico Leaves Trail of Death, Uncertainty," Wall Street Journal (Sept. 5, 1996).
71. "U.S. Offer Raises Sticky Questions," San Francisco Chronicle (Dec. 10, 1996).
72. Col. Rex Applegate, "Time Bomb On the U.S. Border: Mexican Military Unable to Counter Insurgency," posted to Chiapas-L (Nov. 29, 1995).
73. "Mexico Political Update," Chase Manhattan's Emerging Markets Group Memo (January 13, 1995).
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