By Garance Burke
El Financiero International
Far from the eyes of the Mexican public, the United States government continues to play a crucial - and highly controversial - role in the Chiapas conflict.
Since 1995, hundreds of Mexican soldiers have been trained at elite U.S. military bases in counternarcotics, maneuvers that are virtually identical to the counterinsurgency tactics used in the Guatemalan civil war.
''The general (U.S.) response is that Mexico has to deal with its own problems,'' said Donald Schulz, an expert on Latin America at the U.S. Army War College. ''At the same time, some of the training and equipment that has been provided to the Mexican military can be used for counterinsurgency purposes.''
Moreover, if Mexico's political stability were at severe risk, said Schulz, the U.S. would militarize the U.S.-Mexico border and could consider further military deployment to Mexico.
''If there were major instability in Mexico of the kind that the country was getting too close to in 1994,'' said Schulz, ''this would provoke large-scale immigration and could carry with it violence to the United States - this is what we have to consider.''
Schulz's comments follow the detention of two U.S. military officials in Chiapas last week, which sparked a controversy over the position of foreign military personnel in Mexico. Meanwhile, as political maelstroms come and go, Schulz's direct employer, the Strategic Studies Institute, will continue to conduct ''strategic studies that develop policy recommendations ... [for] the U.S. Army as well as national leadership.''
Since 1994, the United States has sold and donated over 235 million dollars' worth of arms and equipment to Mexico, including 103 UH1H ''Huey'' helicopters, 4 surveillance planes, as well as night vision, electronic control and satellite equipment.
Furthermore, in recent years the number of Mexican generals, soldiers and pilots receiving counterinsurgency training at the U.S. Special Forces (Green Berets) base in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, has risen dramatically.
Schulz disclosed that several U.S.-leased counternarcotics helicopters were used in Chiapas.''One cannot limit the uses to which they put our counternarcotics training, because that can be used just as easily for counterinsurgency,'' Schulz said. ''There's a real problem separating the two, and I don't think anyone has come up with a solution.''
A partial solution, according to a group of U.S. legislators - among them Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) - is a non-binding resolution regarding Chiapas.If passed, the resolution would recommend that U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urge Mexican officials to disarm paramilitary groups and reduce military presence in Chiapas, and assure that U.S. military equipment is not used in the conflict. It also suggests that the United Nations intervene, and for the peace process to be renewed.
Foreign Relations Minister Rosario Green blasted the resolution, calling it ''unacceptable interventionism'' based on ''incomplete, inexact and . biased information.'' Although the resolution has been tabled until after August, the U.S. House of Representatives' Western Hemisphere Affairs Subcommittee recently held a hearing on Chiapas, where scholars and human rights leaders testified.
''It's a process of educating the public that there is a growing institutional relationship between the U.S. and the Mexican armed forces,'' said Ted Lewis of nonprofit Global Exchange, which spearheaded lobbying efforts. ''We don't see this as interventionism, we're trying to challenge U.S. policy.''
Global Exchange's involvement was in part prompted by reports from S. Brian Willson, a Vietnam veteran and lawyer by training who has documented the flow of U.S. equipment to Chiapas. Willson writes that when Gen. Mario Renan - who was trained in counterinsurgency tactics at Ft. Bragg - served as the former commander of the Seventh Military Region in Chiapas, he directly supported ruling party-aligned paramilitary group Paz y Justicia, one of the area's most dangerous and best-funded counterinsurgency groups.
>From all official accounts, the two Americans detained in Chiapas - the Embassy's Asst. Army Attache Thomas Gillen and First Sergeant Elizabeth Krug - were on a ''routine visit'' when they were held in El Bosque for over four hours by Tzotzil Indians, who demanded to know their purpose in the area. They were freed once Chiapas state officials intervened, but not before making a splash in the Mexican press.
A meeting between Foreign Relations Vice Minister Carlos de Icaza and Charles Brayshaw, the U.S. Embassy's Charge d'Affaires, quickly ensued. ''The Ministry confirmed the importance of foreign visitors' exercising prudence ... when visiting the Chiapas conflict zones ... so as not to interfere in internal affairs or endanger the positive path of bilateral relations,'' stated a press bulletin.
The ministry has also demanded that U.S. military personnel inform the Mexican government about their travel plans. Meanwhile, Schulz says in the event that the Chiapas conflict spreads to other states, there is no ''clear-cut policy'' for the United States. ''The best results are from private, behind-the-scenes diplomacy, rather than diplomacy that is exercised in the public eye,'' he said.
U.S. Admits Role In Chiapas Conflict, Aug 10 Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 21:23:32 -0700 From: NUEVO AMANECER PRESS <amanecer@aa.net> El Financiero International Vol. 8, No. 07, August 3-9, 1998 (Front Page) ___________________________________________________ NUEVO AMANECER PRESS To know about us visit: http://www.nap.cuhm.mx/nap0.htm General Director: Roger Maldonado Director Europe: Darrin Wood Coordinator: USA-Mexico-Europe: Susana Saravia (Anibarro) Advisory and support team: Mexico *When reproducing NAP's translations; please give credit* *NAP's team works on a volunteer basis and does not receive any funding from any source*