Documents Reveal Pentagon's Scrutiny of Zapatistas and Mexican Military. Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www. This article continues the Archivos Abiertos series of monthly reports on U. S.- Mexico relations produced by the Americas Program in collaboration with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC and its Mexico Project. As Mexico Project director Kate Doyle explains: .
Interhemispheric Resource Center The Interhemispheric Resource Center. The Interhemispheric Resource Center, which later became the International Relations Center, was founded in 1979 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Americas Program A website run by the Interhemispheric Resource Center, an independent think tank critical of U.S. Focusing especially on economic issues and trade, it is critical of current policies while also.
View Alexandra Spieldoch's business profile as Analyst for the Americas Program, Online at Interhemispheric Resource Center and see work history, affiliations and more. Indigenous movements in the Americas. Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center.
The results, presented in this monthly series, offer the unprecedented opportunity to separate the rhetoric from the reality, and provide a foundation for rebuilding binational diplomacy on the basis of shared interests, transparency, and citizen involvement. The original documentation, as well as previous articles, may be found at www. Your comments are welcome at < americas@irc- online.
- The Challenge of Becoming Active Citizens Under Brazil's New People-Centered Government Marcos Arruda Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center. When people elect a government.
- Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center www.americaspolicy.org A New World of Analysis, Ideas, and Policy Options The Border Patrol is beefing up its staffing and stepping up construction of infrastructure along the.
When the United States government considered the rebellion in Chiapas, it did so through the twin lenses of its primary national interests: money and power. The Zapatista uprising exploded on January 1, 1. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The uprising challenged an image of Mexico that had been peddled for months in the halls of the U.
S. Congress in an effort to gain approval for the historic trade pact. According to the NAFTA lobby, Mexico was a modern, youthful nation, eager for change- -unencumbered by the chains of its own political history or by the centuries of rural poverty and oppression. The events of 1. 99.
American investors. Pentagon documents reveal that they had been following the emergence of the Zapatistas at least since early 1. They regarded the Mexican government's response to the uprising as a window into an institution known for its supreme secrecy, silence, and resistance to public scrutiny: the Mexican armed forces. The Mexican Army was an institution that was (and remains) resolutely closed to American engagement. The history of post- World War II security relations between the United States and Mexico is a tale of frustration on the part of U.
S. Unlike many of its Central and South American neighbors, Mexico's Defense Secretariat ( Secretar. Reading through hundreds of declassified cables, reports, and intelligence analyses produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during the first twelve months of the rebellion, one learns very little about the social, political, or economic factors that lay behind the Zapatista uprising. But the documents are replete with new and interesting details about the Mexican military. As Mexico marks the tenth anniversary of the rebellion, the country finds itself poised to challenge for the first time in modern memory the army's refusal to open itself to civilian scrutiny and influence. Know Thy Enemy Washington 's professed surprise at the Zapatista uprising is belied by two years of reports by Pentagon officials on suspicious and clearly subversive activities in Chiapas . Although the Mexican government publicly portrayed early encounters with rebels in 1.
Guatemalan guerrillas who had crossed the border to foment unrest, declassified DIA documents paint another picture. In April 1. 99. 2, for example, U. S. The embassy's Defense Attach. The DIA cable (June 1.
To date, the military has only publicly admitted to light casualties and the completion of civic action projects in the region. A secret intelligence assessment from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) written on January 3 helped explain the regime's refusal to acknowledge a rebel presence before January 1. For some time before the uprising, wrote an INR analyst, the activities of radical indigenous groups in Chiapas had triggered anxiety . Eradication efforts would have entailed military operations that may have proven politically suicidal for the government.
Their sources of funding and equipment are not known. The government will seek to restrain the army to avoid local complaints of army human rights abuse.
A stand- off with recurring violence could frighten foreign investors and embarrass the government, affecting presidential elections in August. The government will beef up security in the region, and could be tempted into repressive tactics.
The Mexican armed forces' incompetence and lack of preparation in facing were recurring themes in the American documents. The army also misrepresented its capabilities to combat the Zapatistas, even to its allies in other military institutions. During a briefing given in January 1. Mexican army officers for foreign military attach. The DAO's political section commented skeptically on the information in a cable written January 2. Judging by our information from other sources, the Mexican military's claims either to having had such extensive knowledge of the EZLN and its membership prior to the outbreak of hostilities or to having reliably obtained additional names for that list since January 1 should be heavily discounted.
We know, for example, that the military asked through many channels- -including non- governmental sources- -for contributions of names of suspected or possible members, supporters or contacts of the EZLN, and that among the lists given them was the entire list of Dominican priests in Chiapas; the names of all Mexican priests regardless of location in the country who attended the 1. Medell. We have learned reliably that all of these names are now on the Mexican military's list of known EZLN members. On the publicity front, for example, the DAO reported on April 2. Zapatistas had trounced its own feeble efforts to win Mexicans' hearts and minds: . Among the purchases were four stealth aircraft- -the Schweizer . In a cable sent to Washington on June 2.
DAO offered an extensive analysis of the prospects for violence as national elections neared . The office observed some of the changes that had been made by the military institution since the uprising began: The army has developed and is prepared to execute on order an offensive contingency plan for Chiapas, and strategic plans for mobilization throughout the national territory in the event of pre- or post- election violence. The military is updating doctrine to better prepare, strategically and tactically, to fight a protracted guerrilla war. The military is rebuilding elements of its force structure to better fight the same type of internal enemy. The military is upgrading its equipment to support the counterinsurgency doctrine and re- organization.
Foreigners to the Rescue Throughout the conflict the Mexican government claimed to have evidence of . Despite the government's insistence that the guerrillas were receiving extensive foreign aid, U.
S. A DIA cable of January 2. Mexican report on having intercepted the radio communications of Guatemalan guerrillas fighting alongside Zapatista rebels. In a comment by the political section of the Defense Attach. Intelligence collected on communications between Guatemalan guerrillas operating near the border with Mexico, explained the cable, indicated that they were almost always conducted in Mam or other Indian dialects, . A good portion of the Defensa claims to substantiate that image have been patently incorrect. It began with the American weapons and military equipment provided under U.
S.- Mexican drug enforcement programs, but also included critical assistance from the armed forces of Britain, Chile, Argentina, and Guatemala, among other countries. Neighboring Guatemala was a special case. Three days after the Zapatistas burst onto the scene, Salinas called his counterpart in Guatemala directly to discuss his concerns of URNG (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity- Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca) involvement in the rebellion. President Ramiro de Le. This team was led, according to a January 4 U. S. Edgar Ricardo Bustamante Figueroa, head of Presidential Security and a known expert on the URNG. The talks were followed on January 6 by a meeting at the headquarters of Guatemalan Military Zone 2.
Playa Grande between Gen. These meetings and others led to extensive cooperation and communication between the two militaries, as they exchanged intelligence information about their respective insurgencies, reciprocated with visits between border military detachments, and carried out coordinated counterinsurgency operations. Beginning in early 1. Mexican army even sent officers to attend the infamous Kaibil jungle operations course in the Pet. However, as one lengthy State Department report observed in May 1.
Information on our privacy policy is available on our network sign- up page.