Argentina
The rightist government of President Javier Milei is sending Argentina’s Congress a package of laws that would return the armed forces to internal security roles for the first time since the years following the country’s return to democracy. The government seeks to deploy combat soldiers—not just logistical support units, as now—to the crime-plagued city of Rosario. Soldiers would be empowered to carry out patrols, checkpoints, and arrests.
- “Prision a Piqueteros y Mas Lugar a las Fuerzas Armadas: El Gobierno Anuncio Que Impulsara Cambios en Seguridad Interior” (Clarin (Argentina), March 21, 2024).
- Luis Piñeiro, “Argentina Quiere Involucrar a Sus Fuerzas Armadas en la Lucha Contra el Narco, una Idea Muy Arriesgada” (Defensa.com, March 12, 2024).
- “Violencia en Rosario: Patricia Bullrich Anuncio un Proyecto de Ley Anti Mafias Y “Operativos de Saturacion”” (Perfil (Argentina), March 11, 2024).
The armed forces are complying with the order to help fight organized crime in Rosario, but are uneasy with the new mission. Several generals communicated to Defense Ministry leadership “that they do not want any of their uniformed men touching ‘a single civilian’ in Rosario.”
- Natasha Niebieskikwiat, “Malestar en las Fuerzas Armadas por la Orden para Que se Involucren en las Operaciones Anti Narco en Rosario” (Clarin (Argentina), March 11, 2024).
Many Argentine analysts worry that expanding military roles to include public security and counternarcotics would be a grave mistake. “You have the armed forces as insurance, as if they were your car insurance,” Rut Diamint of Buenos Aires’s Torcuato di Tella Institute tells her students. “You hope never to use them, but when you have to use them, the fact that they have been working as policemen does not help you.”
- Dacil Lanza, “Militares Como Policias en America Latina: ¿Sale Bien?” (Cenital, March 18, 2024).
- Luciano Anzelini, “Dilemas de la Cupula Castrense” (El Cohete a la Luna (Argentina), March 24, 2024).
- Antonio D’eramo, “Milei Considers Deploying Armed Forces Against Organised Crime” (Noticias Argentinas, The Buenos Aires Times, February 19, 2024).
“Countries that have used the Armed Forces to fight drug trafficking had negative results, there was no success,” said former Argentine Army commander Martín Balza. “The results were lethal, demoralizing for the forces, and seriously affected their essence and professionalism.”
- “Balza: “Los Resultados de Enfrentar a los Narcos Con las Fuerzas Armadas Fueron Negativos”” (Perfil (Argentina), March 13, 2024).
The Milei government has prohibited the use of gendered names for officer ranks held by women (“generala”, “sargenta”, “soldada” or “caba”).
- “Defensa Elimino el Lenguaje Inclusivo en las Fuerzas Armadas: Sancionaran a Militares Que Lo Utilicen” (Perfil (Argentina), February 25, 2024).
The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Laura Richardson, will pay a visit to Argentina on April 3.
- Natasha Niebieskikwiat, “La Jefa del Comando Sur de los ee.uu. Vuelve al Pais: Preocupacion por los Narcos en Rosario y el Despliegue de China” (Clarin (Argentina), March 19, 2024).
Brazil
The former chiefs of Brazil’s army and Air Force told police investigators that then-president Jair Bolsonaro presented them with a plan to remain in power after he lost the country’s October 2022 elections. They refused to participate, though the chief of Brazil’s Navy “said he would put his troops at Jair Bolsonaro’s disposal,” one testified.
- Eleonore Hughes, Mauricio Savarese, “Brazil Military Leaders Told Police Bolsonaro Plotted to Remain in Power Despite Election Defeat” (Associated Press, Associated Press, March 15, 2024).
“It is said that, of the sixteen members of the high command, between four and six were in on the coup,” wrote Veja columnist Ricardo Rangel.
- Ricardo Rangel, “O Que Fazer Com as Forcas Armadas” (Veja (Brazil), February 23, 2024).
Chile
Faced with concern over urban crime, leftist President Gabriel Boric is voicing willingness to send the military into some neighborhoods using a legal authority to “protect critical infrastructure.” Presidential spokeswoman Camila Vallejo said, “Let’s not believe this is a silver bullet. There is a tone in public opinion or debate that makes people think that this is going to be the solution to fight crime, and the truth is that it is going to be one tool among many.”
- Alonso Vatel, David Tralma, “Boric se Abre a Despliegue Militar en Zonas Urbanas y Parlamentarios del Oficialismo se Resisten a la Idea” (La Tercera (Chile), March 14, 2024).
Guatemala
Guatemala’s Constitutional Court officially closed the “CREOMPAZ case,” a years-long effort to prosecute a group of former high-ranking military officers accused of forcibly disappearing 565 people between 1982 and 1988, during the country’s long armed conflict. The victims were found in a mass grave at a peacekeeping training base in Alta Verapaz that the Army had used as a clandestine torture center. Among those questionably exonerated is Gen. Benedicto Lucas García, brother of dictator Romeo Lucas García (1978-1982).
- “CC Confirma Fallo de Jueza de Cerrar Proceso Contra Militares Senalados en Caso Creompaz” (EFE, Prensa Libre (Guatemala), February 20, 2024).
- Diego Espana, “Cc Deja en Firme el Proceso en Contra de Varios Exmilitares Acusados en el Caso Creompaz” (La Hora (Guatemala), February 20, 2024).
Honduras
Generals who testified in a U.S. court in favor of ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was found guilty of narcotrafficking on March 8, had careers deeply intertwined with that of the disgraced leader, Contra Corriente reported. Gen. Tulio Romero Palacios, who served as Hernández’s aide-de-camp, attended military school with Hernández since they were 13.
- Fernando Silva, Jennifer Ávila, Vienna Herrera, “Amistad, Empresas y Encubrimientos: Asi Es el Circulo de Generales Leales a Joh” (Contra Corriente, March 6, 2024).
The deaths of three alleged gang members in a prison cell on February 18 raised to eleven the death toll in Honduras’s prison system since the armed forces took control of it in June 2023.
- Kelly Ortez, “Al Menos 11 Muertes en Penitenciarias Hondurenas Bajo Control Militar, Genera Duda Sobre Intervencion” (Criterio (Honduras), February 19, 2024).
Mexico
A report from Mexico United Against Crime (MUCD), a non-governmental research and advocacy group, documented a sharp growth in the Mexican armed forces’ economic power during the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which began at the end of 2018. The military had no participation in state-owned companies before then, now it is involved in or managing 30. “Today, the Armed Forces are in charge of exercising, administering and strategically managing a large part of public money and the profits of state-owned companies with opacity, high discretion, and no accountability,” it concludes.
- “Fuerzas Armadas Registran Empoderamiento Economico Sin Precedentes; Mucd Advierte de Riesgos a la Democracia” (Mexico Unido Contra la Delincuencia, March 6, 2024).
- Benito Jimenez, “Operan Fuerzas Armadas en la Opacidad, Advierte Ong” (Reforma (Mexico), March 6, 2024).
Migration control has become a key area of military involvement in domestic non-defense functions, contends a report from the Mexico City-based Universidad Ibero. The country’s migration agency (National Migration Institute, INM) now has retired officers in several high positions and works closely with the military on migrant control operations.
- “Informe Militarizacion del Inm” (Universidad Ibero (Mexico), March 14, 2024).
An August rescission of arrest orders against Army personnel allegedly involved in the 2014 Ayotzinapa disappearances “was a startling indication of the power of the Mexican military,” noted Alma Guillermoprieto in a thorough narrative of this high-profile case, which remains in impunity nearly 10 years after it happened.
Alma Guillermoprieto, “Forty-Three Mexican Students Went Missing. What Really Happened to Them?” (The New Yorker, March 4, 2024).
Mexico has 37,478 National Guardsmen assigned to policing tasks under the command of the federal government’s Public Security Secretariat (SSPC), wrote Lilian Chapa Koloffon at Nexos. That is a drop from the 43,724 civilian Federal Police that existed when the Andrés Manuel López Obrador government began in 2018. (López Obrador abolished the Federal Police and set up the National Guard, a militarized force that for now is nominally under civilian command.) Meanwhile, the number of military police in Mexico’s army grew from 14,822 to 69,461 from 2020 to 2024.
- Lilian Chapa Koloffon, “El Futuro de la Guardia Nacional de Amlo: Dos Escenarios” (Nexos (Mexico), March 12, 2024).
The Mexican military’s Cyberspace Operations Center carries out activities including the use of Israeli-made software to monitor citizens’ social media accounts, and “influence operations” to defend the armed forces’ public image, reported the Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales.
- “Ejercito de Bots: Las Operaciones Militares para Monitorear las Criticas en Redes Sociales y Manipular la Conversacion Digital” (R3D: Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales, February 27, 2024).
The newsmagazine Proceso recalled that Venezuelan civil-military relations expert and activist Rocío San Miguel, whom the Maduro regime imprisoned and has been holding almost totally incommunicado since early February, was a frequent critic of Mexican President López Obrador’s policies that increased his country’s armed forces’ power.
- Rafael Croda, “Las Duras Criticas de la Activista Detenida por Maduro a la Militarizacion de Amlo” (Proceso (Mexico), February 18, 2024).
Nicaragua
As dictator Daniel Ortega ages and the power of his wife, Rosario Murillo, grows, Manuel Orozco wrote an analysis wondering whether the country’s generals will remain loyal to her, and if so which ones. It notes that the armed forces or retired officers control several entities, from civil aeronautics to tax collection to counternarcotics, that offer potential for enrichment.
- Manuel Orozco, “El Ejercito Como Poder Detras y al Lado del Trono” (Confidencial (Nicaragua), February 23, 2024).
See also:
- Civil-Military Relations in the Americas: Some Links from the Past Month
- Civil-Military Relations in the Americas: Some Links from the Past Month
- Delaying Tactics Threaten Justice in March 2022 Colombian Military Massacre Case
- The Chilean Military’s Conspicuous Absence
- 50 Years After the Pinochet Coup, Deep Divisions in Chile
- Mexico Now Deploys More Soldiers than Police for Public Security
- Mexican Military Personnel Deployed on Border and Migration Missions