The Mexican military that is emerging from the Cold War is primarily charged with the armed management of social conflict and execution of U. S. designed counter-narcotics strategies.
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As the military suppressed the urban and rural guerrilla groups that sprang up after the 1968 student movement, its influence in governing circles increased. During the Echeverria administration (1970—1976), a new 900-acre military academy was built on the southern outskirts of Mexico City— its cost a military secret. Large sums were spent on modernizing equipment. Beginning in 1977, cavalry units began to receive motor vehicles to replace their horses. As late as the 1970s, some of Mexico’s combat aircraft dated from the Second World War. During the Lopez Portillo administration (1976—1982), the military shared in the oil wealth as Mexico acquired supersonic F-5 jet fighters.116
Military involvement with Chiapas increased after the indigenous rebellion there in 1994. After its initial ten-day counteroffensive, the military was assigned the role of cordoning off, but not crushing, the rebel force. Tens of thousands of troops were permanently stationed around rebel-occupied areas.117
The military assumed a greatly increased role in fighting illegal drug production. By 2000, 36,000 troops, a fifth of the total, were involved in drug eradication. In parts of Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Guerrero, where the military concentrated its forces to fight drugs, the army became de facto the supreme authority. The military’s role in drug enforcement inevitably opened the door to corruption. It also led to widespread human rights abuse. In 1990, Americas Watch reported that “torture and political killings are still institutionalized techniques in the military.”118
During the crime wave that gripped Mexico City after the 1994 peso crisis, President Zedillo lost confidence in Mexico’s notoriously corrupt and venal police and appointed army General Enrique Tomas Salgado Cordero as the top public security chief in the city. He also named generals and colonels to the city’s top public safety posts.119
The military replaced police elsewhere in Mexico. Thousands of soldiers substituted for police in Baja California. Some twenty states recruited active or retired military officers for key police posts, and military officers commanded most anti-drug agencies. Political scientist Roderic Camp commented on the military’s performing police work: “It’s misguided to think that military officers are going to meet success where the police and political institutions have failed. The major danger is that it will further compromise the military as an institution by exposing it to all these sources of corruption.”120
As Mexico opened its economy to the rest of the world, the Mexican military also opened itself to the outside world, which, given the reality of geopolitics, meant the U. S. military. U. S. arms sales to Mexico, which had totaled only $32.3 million dollars between 1950 and 1979, soared to $508.4 million between 1980 and 1988.121
During the 1990s, U. S.—Mexican military cooperation increased still further. In 1995, to discuss security issues, U. S. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry made an official visit to Mexico—a first for a U. S. secretary of defense. This unprecedented visit symbolized the increasingly close relationship between the two militaries. In 1997, Mexico supplied 305 students, more than any other Latin American country, to the School of the Americas located at Fort Benning, Georgia. This school has been frequently criticized for training personnel who later return to their home
Countries and commit human rights abuses. In 1999, Mexico was the second largest recipient (after Colombia) of U. S. military aid in Latin America.122
Links between the two militaries reflect the expanded mission of the Mexican military. Between 1996 and 1997, U. S. security assistance to Mexico increased from $5.33 million to $74.25 million as the Mexican army plunged into the war against drugs. Similarly, the number of Mexican military officers trained in the United States increased from 300 to 1,500. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Mexican military mission expanded to include counterterrorism. Between 2001 and 2005, U. S. security assistance to Mexico averaged $41.7 million, while the number of Mexican military personnel trained averaged 717.123
Mexican military spending soared as the pace of the anti-drug effort increased and as the military deployed to Chiapas and elsewhere to contain rebels. Such spending increased from $678 million in 1990 to $3.22 billion in 2006.124
World History
