The Emergence of "Guardian Democracy"
McSherry, J. Patrice
In guardian democracy, military power endures as a check against and counter- weight to popular majorities. The latent threat of military reaction has the power to shape government decision making...
...Decree 1116/96 established the principal military role and included missions of internal security...
...Yet Chile's institutional foundation was deformed by the Pinochet regime's 1980 Constitution and by laws imposed before the transition...
...Human rights and workers' organizations protested in March 1998 when Bjinzer unveiled a bill that criminalized social protest and curtailed freedom of speech...
...New internal security missions for military forces strengthen the most anti-democratic sectors within them and endanger the rights of citizens to protest, to influence their governments, or to fight for social and economic change...
...Role expansion helped create politicized militaries that came to believe themselves uniauelv s o :ic rc c VOL XXXII, No 3 Nov/DEC 1998 qualified to would like represent "per-in-chief of manent national interests" and lead their -states...
...72 (May-August 1997), p. 37...
...see also his "Police, Armed Forces, and Democracy in Brazil," paper prepared for the Sawyer Seminar at the New School for Social Research, October 1997, p. 13...
...The trends identified here pose threats to the struggles in the region for social justice and more inclusive forms of democracy...
...743 (April-June 1998), p. 54...
...engagement worldwide.' In that context, the Administration has stated its commitment to democracy and against military coups, and indeed, it has provided important backing for democratic forces on several occasions, as in Guatemala during the 1993 self-coup by President Jorge Serrano...
...Paramilitary groups, responsible for a number of massacres, including the December 1997 massacre in Acteal, Chiapas, have assumed an important role in the militarization process...
...Despite the transitions from direct military rule in Latin America and the emergence of market democracies in nearly every country, many governments, in the face of the economic hardships been countered by efforts to limit and control social mobilization and political opposition...
...5. Arturo Valenzuela and Pamela Constable, "Democracy in Chile," Current History(1991), pp...
...The military-dominated National Security Council, another authoritarian legacy, exercises a supervisory function over government polivene in politics and society, an such missions give the mili taries justifications for maintaining large forces in the absence of credible threats Militaries in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Guatemala and elsewhere legalized and institutionalized guardian structures and tutelary powers before or during the transitions to civilian government...
...There are five military ministers in the cabinet, an the military continues to exercise internal security role, carrying surveillance of the militant lan movement and intervening in do conflicts if commanders deem it sary...
...3 0 HRW also reported that Pentagon and CIA officers worked with the Colombians on the intelligence reorganization and counseled them to strengthen their ties with the paramilitaries...
...Military officers now command the federal police in Chihuahua and Mexico City...
...Throughout Latin America, the armed forces remain convinced of their right to interco and Peru, military prerogatives have expanded during civilian rule...
...Impunity is corrosive to democracy because powerful sectors that were beyond the law during the military era remain so even after the transition...
...When opposition deputies summoned General Hermoza to explain, 35 high-ranking military commanders marched into Congress with him in a clear gesture of intimidation...
...See Col...
...The mantle of impunity continues to shield human rights abusers, who can go on to commit new crimes...
...of American States and sharing responsibility with Latin American militaries for surveillance, patrol, search-and-rescue operations, defense of the Panama Canal and operation of the School of the Americas...
...R) Antonio Federico Moreno, "Planeamiento militar conjunto," Revista Militar (April-June, 1997), pp...
...2 ' Chilean officers also insist that their role is permanent and unchangeable, not subject to the political machinations of transitory elected officials...
...According to dissident general Rodolfo Robles, Montesinos ran a death quad-called the Colina 3roup-between 1991 and 1993 hich was responsible for two gh-profile massacres as well as veral bombings and kidnappings...
...3 2 Private security agencies that incorporate former dirty war operatives and military personnel also represent remnants of the dirty war apparatus...
...Report of the Project of Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI), La Prensa (Guatemala), June 6, 1998, p. 26...
...Angel Phez, "lnsblita incursion de la copula militar en el Congreso peruano," Clarin (Buenos Aires), July 24, 1997...
...policy makers still seem to privilege military-to-military relations over support for weak civilian institutions and societies and still fear "instability" as a central threat to "market democracy" throughout the world...
...Joao R. Martins Filho and Daniel Zirker, "The Brazilian Military and the New World Order," Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Vol...
...Mario Fernandez Baeza, "La Politica de Defensa como Politica de Estado," Politica y Estrategia, No...
...General Hugo Bgnzer, who overthrew the Bolivian government in a coup in 1971 and ruled for seven years, was elected to the presidency in June 1997...
...2 0 In Colombia, counter-drug operations have been fused with counterinsurgency operations characterized by massacres, torture and assassination...
...Ayuda antiterorista de los EE.UU,"La Nacidn Online (Buenos Aires) May 24, 1998...
...3334...
...The first trend is the enlargement of the military presence in civilian institutions...
...Finally, the military's commitment to democratic structures is tenuous...
...105-124...
...73 (SeptemberDecember 1997), p. 92...
...30, No...
...Jorge Zaverucha, "The 1998 Brazilian Constitution and Its Authoritarian Legacy: Formalizing Democracy While Gutting its Essence," Journal of Third World Studies,Vol...
...lawyer Jennifer Harbury released a list of 23 military officers who might be part of Jaguar Justiciero, and in July the Bishop's Human Rights Office accused several military officers of involvement in the Gerardi assassination...
...The latent threat of military reaction has the power to shape government decision making and inhibit popular political participation...
...Some of the officers named by both were members of the Presidential High Command, an elite military corps that, during the civil war, housed the "Archivo," a sophisticated intelligence apparatus that directed the repression...
...Cbsar Streig GonzAlez (officer of the Chief of Staff), "Conceptualizaci6n de las Fronteras Interiores: Aplicaci6n a la XI Region Ays4n del General, Politica y Estrategia," Academia Nacional de Estudios Politicos y Estrat4gicos, No...
...Menem pardoned military seditionists and the junta commanders of the dirty war, and he has consistently acted to ensure military impunity...
...The Emergence of "Guardian Democracy" 1. "A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement" (Washington: General Publishing Office, 1995): p. 5, quoted in Robert H. Dorff, "Democratization and Failed States: The Challenge of Ungovernability," Parameters (Washington: U.S...
...8. Personal correspondence from Paulo de Mesquita Neto, August 12, 1998...
...Meanwhile, security forces in Latin America have not been institutionally restructured since the periods of direct military rule...
...Francisco Rojas Aravena and Paz V. Milet, "Introducci6n," Narcotrifico y seguridad en Ambrica Latina y el Caribe (Santiago: FLACSO and Woodrow Wilson Center, 1997), p. 7. 20...
...het left his post as der, but he assumed a lifetime senator, s securing the politial control of the xtreme right in Chilean politics...
...al., The New Political Inequality in Latin America: RethinkincParticipation and Representation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), chap...
...A military mission targeting "social unrest" represents a warning to those hurt by or opposed to the socioeconomic model...
...R. Aranciba Clavel, "La Seguridad, Necesidad Imprescendible para el Desarrollo," Politica y Estrategia, No...
...Brig.-Gen...
...See his "Lawlessness from Above and Below: Economic Radicalism and Political Institutions," SAIS Review (Winter-Spring 1998), pp...
...Fujimori closed Congress and the courts, suspended the Constitution, and ceded control of the counterinsurgency war to the military...
...The human rights report of the Archbishop's Human Rights Office-which Gerardi had presented to the public two days before his murder-said that the Archivo participated in creating paramilitary groups and death squads, including Jaguar Justiciero, in the 1980s...
...Govern- and envil ment seeks to unify all the American armies in a continental force protE under its leadership, though Latin American militaries, fearing the loss of national sovereignty, have indicated their wariness of such a U.S.-led unified force...
...9, No...
...Beyond that, Washington has Washingto encouraged a prominent military role in conflict resolution and the Latin peacekeeping, inter-American joint operations, social welfare militarie...
...2 8 Another trend in the region is the continued impunity for violators of human rights...
...As a result, U.S...
...The right in the Senate has defeated many of the Aylwin and Frei governments' democratizing initiatives, including bills to protect human rights, reform repressive state security laws, and remove civilian crimes from the jurisdiction of military courts...
...Zedillo has also expanded the military role in law enforcement and in drug interdiction...
...Mitchell Orenstein demonstrates how shock therapies promoted by economists and the Washington-based international lending organizations have actually undermined democracy and the rule of law in Russia and Latin America...
...5 The nine members of the Chilean Supreme Court were named by General Pinochet before the transition, making the Court another institutional legacy of the military regime...
...6-10...
...4 It gave the military the right to intervene at any time to defend the institutional order and national security...
...XXXII, No...
...On the other hand, stabilizing the "new world order" has been one of the Administration's major objectives...
...XXXI, No...
...2. William Perry and Max Primorac, "The Inter-American Security Agenda," from a special issue on The Summit of the Americas, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol...
...See interview with a former civilian official of SIDE under former President Alfonsin by Sergio Moreno, "Fuera de servicio," Pagina/12, October 19, 1997...
...Peru Kills Effort to Block Fujimori from Running Again," Miami Herald, August 29, 1998...
...Army War College, Summer 1996), p. 17...
...3) new internal security and domestic-intelligence doctrines and missions for the military...
...In May 1998, Jaguar Justiciero also threatened electoral candidates of the center-left New Guatemala Democratic Front (FDNG...
...96-99...
...In Argentina, members of these agencies have been implicated in destabilization campaigns and in terrorist attacks...
...A crucial indicator of civilian control is whether the military is accountable to a constitutional judiciary...
...2 2 Prominent officers identify terrorism, drug trafficking, poverty and social unrest as key military threats, as well as vague "political, cultural, or ideological influences that try to impose different values" upon the national identity...
...In much of the region, strong executives, backed by military-security forces, dominate political and economic decision making...
...They executed eight in the plaza and "disappeared" the rest...
...1; Stephen Gill, "Globalization, Democratization, and the Politics of Indifference," in James Mittelman, ed., Globalization: Critical Reflections (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996), p. 210...
...Herein lies the cenontradiction of Clinton poliwhile espousing democrathe Administration rengthens the military forces that have been the region's greatest threat to democracy over the past generation...
...6 18NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 18 NAUCA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON MILITARIZATION In Brazil, the political system still features a military presence under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso...
...Human Rights Watch (HRW) obtained a secret 1991 military paramilitary partnership...
...The Constitution established nine "designated" senators out of 47 (four are former military commanders), enabling the extreme right to wield political weight that exceeds its social base...
...Also in May, hooded paramilitaries invaded four neighborhoods in Barrancabermeja with lists of persons to seize...
...Washington Office on Latin America, The Mexican Military: Placed in Context, (Washington,D.C.: WOLA, March 1997...
...policy makers are often content with the procedural traoDings of democracy such as formal e the regimes in question welc ment and political guidance...
...President Ernesto Zedillo ordered a military response to the uprisings by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and other new guerrilla groups, and counterinsurgency operations have expanded in large areas of southern and central Mexico...
...Opposition deputies in Argentina have denounced wiretaps on their phones in Congress and suggested that official intelligence services are to blame...
...Such intelligence organizations, both civilian and military, pose a threat to civil liberties, especially when agents within them continue to harbor Cold War national security concepts...
...9 In Peru the armed forces play a central role in counter-drug operations, despite the fact that Montesinos and high-ranking officers have been linked to drug traffickers...
...As Atilio Bor6n and others have argued, the tension is not between state and market, but between democracy and the market.1 7 Executives have used national security laws reminiscent of the military states and mobilized the military and security forces to enforce order...
...As long as structural and ideological legacies of the national security states remain, democratization is at risk...
...There seems to be an affinity between neoliberal programs and policies to Latin America, military forces consider internal security and intelligence to be inseparable from national defense and part of the military mission...
...policy makers apparently have encouraged their Argentine counterparts to restore a counter-subversive mission as well...
...Perry also proposed that a hemispheric military force deal with unauthorized immigration flows, peacekeeping and natural disasters...
...Maxwell A. Cameron, "Self-Coups: Peru, Guatemala, and Russia," Journal of Democracy, Vol...
...3. Cfrculo Militar (Argentina), "XXI Conferencia de los ejercitos americanos," Revista Militar (October-December 1995), pp...
...3234...
...Embassy Bombing Anniversary Marked," Buenos Aires Herald, March 23, 1998...
...The final trend toward "guardian democracy" is the increased activity of paramilitary groups, notably in Colombia and Mexico, and the activities of uncontrolled private security organizations, as in Argentina...
...When a television station reported on torture and political surveillance in 1997, the military closed it down and revoked the citizenship of its foreign-born owner...
...In 1993, military chiefs, along with some civilians, advised President Itamar Franco to close Congress and the courts and impose a military-backed self-coup, but he refused...
...2 7 Such advice strengthens the influence of the most reactionary elements of the armed and security forces, who are already convinced there is a "subversive resurgence" in the country...
...24 (Summer 1996), pp...
...The Constitution was designed to make an authoritarian democracy permanent after the transition from military rule, with undemocratic and unrepresentative mechanisms built in to prevent another leftist challenge...
...4) the use of political intelligence organizations...
...2 Perry called for adding a military arm to the Organization :tion...
...Human Rights Watch, "Executive Summary," Colombia's Killer Networks: The Military-Paramilitary Partnership and the United States, November, 1996...
...increasing acceptance of it throughout the region...
...It has often ruled in favor of protecting the prerogatives of the military and upheld the amnesty law issued by the de facto military regime in 1978...
...Fujimori reopened ConL gress after new elections gave his personalistic party majority control...
...Although some officers remain reluctant to take on a counter-drug mission, there is Chilean army officers insist that their role in politics is permanent and unchangeable, not subject to the machinations of transitory elected officials...
...Carlos Vilas, "Participation, Inequality, and the Whereabouts of Democracy," in Douglas Chalmers et...
...In June, U.S...
...Laifio identified the challenges to the nation-state as poverty and lack of social development, massive migration flows, environmental issues, 17 '1 0 0i aREPORT ON MILITARIZATION structural inequalities within states, drug trafficking, terrorism, subversion, tensions caused by economic competition, and territorial disputes...
...Atilio Boron, State, Capitalism, and Democracy in Latin America (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995...
...4. See Nibaldo H. Galleguillos, "In search of a New Paradigm in Civil-Military Relations in Latin-America: The Chilean Case," paper prepared for the XXI Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, September 24-26, 1998...
...Armed forces are involved in counter-drug missions in Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Caribbean countries, while the militaries in Argentina, Chile and Brazil appear to be moving toward such a role...
...2 3 In Mexico, where important political opposition has emerged and the power of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has declined, significant militarization has taken place...
...Clinton has supizing and of Latin ries, its policy ing eleity with ctives...
...This concept assigns the military a factors of insecurity that constitute aspects of weakness in political, economic, social and military dimensions that significantly alter or make vulnerable the security of the nationstate...
...These apoaratuses still operate SIuIII- . III C, - Ilu lV intelligence bodies, and versight is extremely weak onexistent...
...strategic objectives as "protecting, consolidating and enlarging the community of free-market democracies" through active, if selective, U.S...
...ix trends in the region pose dangers to genuine democratization and reveal a "guardian" process...
...7 The armed forces took dire in public-security situations an es times between 1985 and 1997, i repression of strikes and demons military retains its hegemony over the weapons industry, nuclear policy and the development of the Amazon region, where it is building military bases and roads...
...1 (Spring 1998), pp...
...Social unrest and "narcosubversion" have been identified as new "nontraditional threats" in several Conferences of the American Armies, the inter-American gatherings of top army commanders that occur about every two years...
...Later, a presidential commission said at least one military officer participated in the massacre...
...In Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Panama, presidents have maneuvered to revise national constitutions in order to permit themselves new terms in office, undermining institutional checks on presidential "monarchies...
...Expansive missions and internal security doctrines in the 1960s provided the justification for the armed forces to assume central roles in state and society...
...When in July 1998 citizens presented a petition with one-and-a-half million signatures calling for a popular referendum on Fujimori's third-term presidential candidacy, the Fujimori-dominated Congress voted the attempt down.13 In Argentina, Menem has weakened the country's constitutional institutions, "stacking" the Supreme Court and by-passing Congress with his frequent use of decrees...
...2) the use of authoritarian practices by civilian governments...
...Budgets and troops have both enlarged in the last few years, and U.S...
...He shows little sympathy for the democratic role of a political opposition or of a free press, routinely attacking both in harsh language that evokes military rhetoric...
...While few analysts believe that 11 A IV aniUL er roUUIIUn o coupsUJ 1s likely in the current international has pushed context, an enlarged military role in state and society presents danAmerican gers to fragile democratization processes...
...Paramilitary groups and death squads operate in a nebulous zone between military command and autonomy...
...Colombian Panel Links Officers to Massacre," Miami Herald, August 2, 1998...
...It proposed a redefinition of the traditional mission of national defense to encompass a role in internal security, and called for a larger intelligence capability...
...9 (March 12, 1998), p. 1. 16...
...See analysis by Roderic Ai Camp, "Democracy and the Mexican Militarry: A View from the Officer Corps," paper prepared for the XXI International Congress of the Latin America Studies Association, Chicago, September 1998...
...The military units most closely connected with the paramilitaries were recipients of substantial U.S...
...In Adminisn's first ational secu0 NAC0A REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON MILITARIZATION rity strategy document defined U.S...
...2 5 These changes-particularly the emphasis on social unrest and on urban and counter-drug operations-are likely to result in a larger political presence for the military in policy making and in society, less civilian control, and, potentially, more repression and more human rights abuses...
...26-29...
...Carlos Noriega, "C6mo Fujimori ve hundirse su re-re," Pagina/12 (Buenos Aires), July 19, 1998...
...For an overview see Joel Simon, "Attacks on the Press in 1997: Overview of the Americas," Committee to Protect Journalists web site, n.d...
...Both SIDE and military intelligence organizations make use of civilian operatives and retired officers from the days of the dirty war...
...3 (Fall 1996), pp.111-128...
...In Argentina there is widespread suspicion that SIDE, along with "parallel" intelligence groups directed by the government, are responsible for political surveillance and harassment...
...has, moreover, maintained cl armies engaged in outright pc as in Indonesia and Colombia, cations reminiscent of the Cold Since the end of the Cold )A Clinton government and the gon's Southern Command (SO' COM) have aggressively pu the Latin American militaries assume an expansive and multidimensional role in confronting drug traffick- t,,, ;,.,,, : , lng, tLerrosm, nsurgenclt;y, lmrnllgration and refugee flows...
...Tens of thousands of troops patrol in Guerrero and Chiapas, and Zapatista villages have been attacked with tanks, mortars and bazookas...
...In guardian democracy, s a check 'eight to and the r opposiscribed...
...In May 1998, the office of the Justice and Peace Commission in Bogotdi was raided by a heavily armed patrol of the army's Special Counterguerrilla Forces, which filmed the office and its computer files and threatened human rights workers...
...The document called for the immediate establishment of special forces units, training programs in urban and suburban operations, and a permanent rapid reaction force in Chiapas...
...See also Barbara Belejack, "Latin American Journalists Under the Gun," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol...
...works to hamper structural While the militaries can now c acting within the law, these in frameworks delimit democra tioning-they were designed direct intervention unnecess other cases, notably Colombia obstruct civilian conting the president's nd remove command and security forces g the military a guarased on copper sales...
...p. 64...
...pparatus, potential Ibelow," political monitors ns civil e latent military he power ernment :ing and 1 partici1 groups...
...1 2 In May 1997 his Congressional majority engineered the removal from the Constitutional Tribunal of judges who ruled against the president's bid for a third term...
...Torturers remain free and may still be employed by the security apparatus...
...Chile, like other countries formerly ruled by the military, has made democratic advances...
...and 6) acts by paramilitary groups and unregulated private security organizations...
...Two major bombings of Jewish targets have not been solved, and many believe SIDE and government figures are blocking the investigations...
...Diana Jean Schemo, "Report Accuses Colombian Army of Links to Killing," New York Times, November 26, 1996...
...2 4 Military officers command most of the country's counterdrug agencies...
...Human rights organizations routinely report break-ins of their offices and robbery of files and computer disks with information on the dirty war...
...counter-drug aid, and the officers accused of directing paramilitary terror were promoted through the ranks...
...The drive to expand the role of the armed forces in Latin America has disturbing precedents...
...36, No...
...It has been noted that much of the civilmilitary leadership of the dictatorship is now in the Senate, ensuring that efforts to democratize authoritarian institutional structures will be blocked in the intermediate future...
...In most of the pacted transitions from authoritarian to democratic rule, military institutions demanded and received guarantees that they would not be prosecuted for their roles in the dirty wars...
...In other words, the impunity of the past reaches into the present and the future, profoundly shaping the limits and possibilities of new democracies...
...9 Military political power is enshrined in the Constitution, and there is substantial evidence that central ideological concepts of the national security doctrine-especially the "threat from below"-continue to orient the Brazilian military.' 0 he second trend visible in Latin America is the use of authoritarian practices by civilian governments...
...54- 55...
...1 (July-August 1998), pp...
...Legitimate opposition to the neoliberal model or to authoritarianism might again be identified as a threat to national security...
...The Chilean military has defined the concept of "internal frontiers" to indicate the parts of the country left behind economically, with weak infrastructure and low population rates...
...Fujimori faced mounting congressional opposition throughout late 1991 and early 1992 to a series of presidential decrees, including harsh antiterrorist measures in the context of the counterinsurgency war against Shining Path...
...His Administration implemented unpopular austerity measures, expanded the military's counterdrug role, and attempted to rewrite national security laws...
...The result has been the emergence of what can be called "guardian democracy...
...The bill gave the president the power to declare a national emergency in conditions of war, natural disaster, subversion or internal unrest, removing a role for Congress...
...uncovered in Argentina...
...3 1 In Guatemala [see p. 20], where all sorts of paramilitary groups were used by the military during the armed conflict, the assassination of Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi was claimed by Jaguar Justiciero, a death squad linked to intelligence sectors of the army during the dirty war...
...In sum, despite the positive transitions that have taken place in Latin America, forms of militarized politics have emerged that have impeded the expansion of political freedoms, undermined the functioning of democratic institutions, and intimidated civil society...
...and civic action--including prominent r "nation- building," a mission popular during the counterinsur- resoluti gency era of the 1960s-and environmental protection...
...There welfare," nat is evidence that the U.S...
...Presidents such as Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Carlos Menem in Argentina, and Cardoso in Brazil have used authoritarian measures to implement economic shock therapies, limit popular participation, weaken political opposition, or bypass constitutional institutions...
...2 9 In fact, the Colombian army was deeply involved in the development of the paramilitary project, using these groups to conduct intelligence and dirty war operations...
...thousands of police were replaced by soldiers in the federal capital and in Baja California...
...Rios, the head of the armed forces, who was replaced by Fujimori in August...
...In response, he carried out a self-coup in April 1992 with the backing of the military...
...The three remaining trends toward guardian democracy can be discussed more briefly...
...35-50...
...New non-combat roles in social welfare and infrastructure building privilege the military over the civilian labor force and increase military rather than civilian capacities...
...He reappointed military officers of the dirty war era to the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE), which is widely suspected of harboring antidemocratic and anti-semitic "mafias" and of carrying out political intelligence against opposition parties as an arm of the president.14 He has also moved to relax legal restrictions on an internal security role for the armed forces...
...In Argentina, there have been some 1,000 threats or attacks against journalists during Carlos Menem's two terms, and two journalists have been killed...
...For in-depth analysis, see "The Wars Within: Counterinsurgency in Chiapas and Colombia," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol...
...3 Given the fact that Argentina's military is considered by many analysts to be the most accepting of democracy in the region, the general's promotion of such an all-encompassing "guardian" role is significant...
...When this accountability is lacking, confidence in civilian government and the rule of law is undermined...
...He called for an army role to resolve them...
...I August 1997, press accoun revealed a Defense Ministry do ment calling for the return of in gence and internal security func to the military, specifically su veillance and repression of ill defined "social, cultural, or political destabilization" as part of a System of Common Security for Mercosur countries...
...He has greatly widened the powers of the military and the intelligence apparatus, which keeps politicians, businessmen, journalists, unionists and others under surveillance, and tortures opponents...
...R) Luis H. Lagos, "Seguridad nacional en Mexico," Revista Militar No...
...The most clear-cut case of civil-military autocracy is Peru...
...However, a 1996 presidential decree on defense had subtly enlarged the latitude for a military internal security role, and in December 1996, President Menem announced-without consulting Congress-that the role of the Argentine military in drug interdiction and counter-terrorism would be significantly expanded to give the armed forces a new prominence in intelligence and air control...
...In a recent statement, an Argentine rabbi blamed "powerful fascist cells within the Buenos Aires police and the State Intelligence Agency (SIDE) that prevent us from getting at the truth...
...In one recent scandal, private phone conversations of the family of the opposition governor of the capital were taped, leaked to a newspaper and published...
...The Argentine Association for the Defense of Independent Journalism called 1997 "the year of the worst regression for freedom of the press in Argentina since the restoration of democracy in 1983...
...Such organizations serve a guardian function, creating terror, limiting democratic rights, precluding policies seen as threatening to elites, and keeping the population fearful and politically inert...
...Some of the most notorious architects of state terror retain positions of power...
...5) continued impunity for violators of human rights...
...Impunity for past human rights abuses was guaranteed, parallel military powers preserved, and nation security values and institution porated within constitution...
...The interaction of these trends has produced militarized forms of politics in which democratic freedoms are constrained and important sectors of society are intimidated and/or excluded...
...They also afford the state deniability...
...The army, which had surrounded the town and set up checkpoints, did nothing...
...The militaries took control of security and development, and the "internal enemy" thesis focused military intelligence and operations on broad sectors of the population...
...15 Not only has the newly independent media been targeted for harsh criticism by presidents in Argentina, Guatemala, Peru and Mexico, but journalists have been subject to physical attack throughout the region...
...HRW, "Executive Summary...
...Jamie Grant, "B16nzer proposal called 'perfect dictatorship,'"' Latin America Press, Vol...
...In this case, as in others, the public outcry led the government to deny that it sought to relegalize a military internal security mission...
...72 (May-August 1997), pp...
...Major-Col...
...5 (March/April, 1998...
...In Colombia the military faces a powerful insurgency, but many of the thousands of persons targeted by military and paramilitary forces have been unarmed civilians...
...XV, No...
...See also Clarin Digital (Buenos Aires), December 6 to 9, 1996...
...Areas of unrest would be declared military zones with armed forces commanders superseding civilian authority...
...Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala (ODHA), "Guatemala City: Nunca M~s versionn resumida...
...One is the use of political intelligence organizations by civilian governments...
...Fujimori and his prime minister defended the military's behavior...
...Until August 1998, power was concentrated in three figures: Fujimori himself, Vladimiro Montesinos, the shadowy intelligence advisor, and General Nicolis Hermoza Carlos Sadl Menem, President of Argentina...
...1 (January 1998), p. 127 ; Philip Mauceri and Maxwell A. Cameron, "Unholy Alliance: Drugs, Corruption, and the Peruvian Military During the Fujimori Administration," paper prepared for the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies conference, Vancouver, March 1998, p, 6. 12...
...There are multiple private security agencies in Argentina, which operate beyond any constitutional control, employing some 90,000 persons...
...In the national security states, the intelligence organizations directed the repression carried out by the militaries, and most are still unreformed and unrestructured...
...counternarcotics aid and materiel have been used by the Mexican military for counterinsurgency purposes in Chiapas...
...Perry was echoed by Argentine General Anibal Laifio at the 1995 Conference of American Armies held in Argentina...
...Other journalists have been murdered in Mexico and Colombia, and several governments have proposed laws to limit press reporting.' 6 In sum, presidents in Latin America, allied with military forces, are creating truncated and militarized forms of democracy as they simultaneously carry out economic restructuring, often by decree...
...9. "Brazilian Official Tells of 93 Plot," New York Times, January 7, 1994...
...A secret military document leaked to the press in 1995 provides insight into the evolving doctrine of the Mexican military...
...2 6 U.S...
...These are: 1) the enlargement of the military presence in civilian institutions...
...In one May 1998 meeting reported by the Argentine media, Defense Secretary William Cohen told the Argentine defense minister and the chiefs of the armed forces that "radicalized groups" were a danger to peace and democracy, and he warned of popular uprisings such as those in Indonesia...
...6. Felipe Aguero, Chile's Lingering Authoritarian Legacy, (February 1998), p. 70 7. "El ejercito, listo para actuar," La Nacion Online (Buenos Aires), April 5, 1998...
...to play a Former Defense Secretary le in conflict William Perry's 1994 formula- tion of the new "inter-American n, social security agenda" provides insights into the thinking of the on building" national security establish)nmental ment...
...Elements within the region's military and police forces involved in dirty wars against their own citizens remain on active duty and in many cases have been promoted within their institutions...
...Philip Mauceri and Maxwell Cameron, "Unholy Alliance," p. 9. 21...
Vol. 32 • November 1998 • No. 3
