Mexican Force's Impunity Targeted

By Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service

MEXICO CITY, Nov. 10 -- Nearly a year after President Vicente Fox took office promising to clean up Mexico's human rights record, he is taking his first steps to
address the military's long history of impunity and rights abuses.

The military is generally considered the most secretive and least democratic Mexican institution, one that previous presidents didn't risk provoking even when its
soldiers tortured or killed civilians.

But in a surprise move Thursday, Fox ordered the release of two environmental activists who human rights groups say confessed to fabricated charges after being
tortured by soldiers. Military leaders opposed the release of the two men, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera.

In coming days, Fox's government is also set to release a report on hundreds of anti-government activists who "disappeared" during the 1970s and '80s. Mexican
media say the document will be the first official acknowledgment that soldiers and other government agents executed many of those people. Cabinet ministers said the
public admonishment of the military could lead to the prosecution of officers.

Interior Minister Santiago Creel also said Friday that the government was undertaking "an exhaustive review" of other cases of unjust imprisonment or human rights
violations by police or military forces. He indicated more people would be freed.

"The army is the enemy of all the poorest people. They have repressed us and killed us," Montiel said in an interview today. Soldiers arrested the
farmer-turned-environmentalist while he was organizing a campaign, including roadblocks, to stop logging in his home state of Guerrero. Montiel said the army is
particularly repressive in Guerrero, one of the country's poorest states and the site of civilian massacres by soldiers and police.

"The army is our worst institution, the greatest corruption is found there," he said.

Montiel, 46, said his release represented a "small first step" by Fox to confront the military. But he said he thinks Fox "is still obeying the orders of the old political
regime. He won't punish the army."

Fox did not exonerate the men; he simply commuted their sentences. "He knows we are innocent, but he doesn't declare us innocent because the army doesn't want
him to," said Montiel, who was sentenced to almost seven years. Cabrera was sentenced to 10.

Human rights groups here and abroad heralded Fox's moves this week. But they also say that, so far, the actions are more show than substance. They note that Fox
has not announced that any soldier would be investigated for the men's allegations of torture.

Critics also note that Fox still has not created his promised truth commission to probe the crimes of Mexico's past, including the military and police forces' efforts to
silence the political opposition.

Political commentator Antonio Ocaranza said uninvestigated human rights violations, many committed by the military, are like a "smelly rotten closet." He said Fox is
trying to figure out how to air them without too much disruption of the government's "whole house."

With the economy in trouble and many other important issues to address, from poverty to education to drug trafficking, Fox risks being distracted and even
destabilizing the country by riling extreme elements of the military.

But human rights groups continue to press Fox to take bolder actions to rein in the military.

"Freeing Rodolfo and Teodoro is an important step, but it's not the final goal," said Edgar Cortez, a Jesuit priest who heads the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human
Rights Center, which represents Montiel and Cabrera.

Cortez said Fox could prove his resolve by ordering an investigation of the environmentalists' allegations of torture. And he said Fox should free former army Gen.
Jose Francisco Gallardo, who has served eight years in prison on what human rights groups say are charges trumped up by the military.

Gallardo, in an interview from his cell Friday, said he believes Fox has made a deal with the military not to probe too deeply into its human rights violations. "If Fox
wants to end impunity and respect human rights, for which he has society's backing, I say to him, 'Don't be afraid of the army,' " Gallardo said.

Once a rising star in the Mexican military, an Olympic athlete and West Point exchange student, Gallardo was found guilty of embezzlement and other charges in
1993. But Gallardo's supporters say his real crime was infuriating the military's leadership. He had suggested in a published article that the military should open itself
to more public scrutiny and create an ombudsman to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by soldiers.

Gallardo said he hopes that Fox will deal with his case next and begin tackling the military's culture of secrecy.

"The army has always committed disappearances, executions and other very serious human rights violations," Gallardo said. "Without a truth commission to clarify
crimes against humanity, the majority perpetrated by members of the army, it's an invitation for crime and violence to escalate."

Military officials have consistently refused to comment on the cases of Gallardo, Montiel and Cabrera.

But Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha, the military's former top prosecutor, said in an interview Friday that he was "absolutely in favor" of Montiel and
Cabrera's release and was "absolutely not opposing" investigations into allegations that soldiers tortured the men.

Since Fox ended seven decades of one-party authoritarian rule when he took office in December, there has been a wave of retirements of top-tier military officers.
Slowly, analysts say, the military is shedding its past.

A succession of generals served as Mexico's president after the Mexican Revolution in 1917. In 1946, military leaders ceded power with an unwritten deal: Generals
agreed to stay out of politics, and the president placed the military virtually beyond scrutiny. Military justice is conducted in closed military courts, and verdicts are
rarely made public.

Fox has seemed reluctant to tamper with that balance. He released the environmentalists only after his hand was forced by the Oct. 19 assassination of Digna Ochoa,
a prominent human rights lawyer.

Ochoa, who had represented the two men, was shot in the face at point-blank range. A note left beside her threatened other prominent human rights workers.
Because Ochoa represented many clients who had alleged torture by the military or police, suspicion has fallen on extreme right-wing groups associated with the
military, although no suspects have been publicly identified.

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