Risky new role for Mexico's army

Modern Mexico has an admirably strong tradition of civilian control over the military. Mexican generals, unlike those elsewhere in Latin America, neither plot for power nor challenge the orders of the elected government.

But the multiple challenges that have shaken Mexico's political system in recent years have drawn the army deeply into civilian life. Troops have been called on to suppress guerrilla uprisings, the air force has been enlisted in the fight against drug cartels and army generals have been assigned to clean up corrupt local police forces. In the past two years, troop strength has been expanded by 15 percent to 180,000 and the military budget has grown by a corresponding amount.

The growing role of the military is disturbing, and it is a threat to President Ernesto Zedillo's efforts to deepen civilian democracy. Zedillo must take care to limit the military's role to cases of clear necessity, like battling guerrilla armies, and then he must make sure that constitutional rights are respected.

Military counterinsurgency campaigns are notoriously prone to human rights abuses. In Chiapas and other southern states where guerrillas have taken up arms, the military has been credibly accused of torture and summary executions in its hunt for insurgents.

It would be tragic if Mexico were to follow some of its neighbors down the path to military brutality and lawlessness. To avoid that possibility, President Ernesto Zedillo should establish clear ground rules for military treatment of civilians. Civilian courts should have final jurisdiction over cases of abusive military behavior toward citizens. Some accusations may lack merit or misrepresent the circumstances, but exonerations of military conduct will lack credibility if they come only from military courts.

The military's role in combating narcotics is limited and consists mainly of air force interception of drug flights. Washington, unwisely, would like to see this expanded. Previous Mexican administrations have resisted even this degree of military involvement, fearing it would sow corruption in the army just as it has in the federal police, the force officially responsible for drug fighting.

Zedillo has also placed the army more deeply into day-to-day policing by bringing in a general to replace the civilian in charge of Mexico City's police department. Corrupt and ineffective police forces need reform, but bringing in the army general, who hired other officers to serve in top command positions, has unnecessarily added to the impression of expanding military power.

The peso devaluation crisis and sharp feuding in the ruling party got Zedillo's presidency off to a weak start. Although he has said that he wants the rule of law and governmental accountability to be the main themes of his administration, he has made himself dependent on unreformed politicians and institutions. To let the military become yet another unaccountable, independent power center would be a calamity for Mexico and would undermine Zedillo's, and Washington's, hopes for continued political and economic reform.

-- The New York Times