Pubdate: Wed, 16 Oct 2002
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2002 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: Jo Tuckman

MEXICAN BATTALION TIED TO DRUGS

Government Holds 48 Soldiers, Could Disband Entire Unit

MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican government may dismantle a 600-soldier army 
battalion based in northwestern Sinaloa state after discovering evidence 
linking dozens of its members to narcotics trafficking.

"A unit can no longer function after being contaminated like this one," 
Mexico's defense minister, Gen. Gerardo Vega Garcia, said during an 
interview on national television late Monday night. "The unit will probably 
be disbanded and something else formed to replace it."

A search of the 65th Infantry Battalion's barracks has uncovered stashes of 
cash and marijuana, Vega Garcia said. He added that 48 soldiers have been 
detained on suspicion of protecting growers of marijuana and opium poppies, 
the raw material for heroin, in the mountainous region they patrolled.

Three of them, including a lieutenant who is being sought after fleeing 
authorities, have already been formally charged with drug-related offenses, 
Vega Garcia said. Tests have found that 40 of the detained soldiers had 
illegal drugs in their systems, he added.

"It was proved that some of the members of the base of operation there did 
not comply with their duty to fight drug trafficking," Vega Garcia told the 
Televisa network. "This is a shameful matter that cannot be passed over."

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense refused to give further 
information about the narcotics investigation or Vega Garcia's comments.

His televised interview, a rarity for a top Mexican military official, was 
aimed at responding to charges leveled by human rights groups last weekend 
that the entire battalion had been held incommunicado since Oct. 3 at its 
base in Guamuchil, about 680 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Some human rights activists, citing reports from the soldiers' wives, had 
charged that many members of the battalion had been tortured.

Vega Garcia denied those allegations but said any evidence of mistreatment 
would be investigated.

The 48 detainees have been transferred to a military prison in the resort 
city of Mazatlan, according to press reports in Guamuchil. Trucks filled 
with soldiers, mattresses and other supplies left the barracks Tuesday, 
said Sergio Lozano of Noreste de Guamuchil, a local newspaper.

Sinaloa, on Mexico's Pacific coast, is sometimes called the country's 
cradle of drug trafficking. The state has a long tradition of illicit 
marijuana and opium poppy cultivation and is the birthplace of many of the 
country's most famed drug barons. The region suffers from high levels of 
revenge killings related to the illegal narcotics trade, which 
traditionally has relied heavily on corrupt authorities.

A three-person delegation from the National Human Rights Commission, an 
autonomous government agency based in Mexico City, arrived in Guamuchil on 
Tuesday to investigate the charges of abuse. The agency had been called in 
by Sinaloa's Human Rights Commission, which complained that it had been 
denied access to the barracks last weekend. "We will make no comment until 
the investigation is finished and a recommendation formulated," national 
commission spokesman Miguel Angel Paredes said.

Rafael Cabrera, an investigator with the Sinaloa rights commission, said 
the wives of soldiers started calling the agency's office on Saturday.

"Most were not allowed to see their husbands, and the few that were 
permitted into the barracks under very restricted conditions reported signs 
of severe beatings," he said.

Cabrera added that the women who contacted the commission refused to 
identify themselves for fear of reprisals.

"The vast majority live in the residential compound beside the barracks, so 
the pressure on them is enormous," Cabrera said of the soldiers' wives. 
"This is not just any institution they are dealing with."

Calls to the barracks Tuesday were met with a curt refusal to provide 
information, even on how many soldiers remained inside.

Narcotics-related corruption has long plagued the Mexican military, which 
plays a central role in drug interdiction and eradication. The Mexican army 
is charged with finding and destroying the marijuana and opium poppy fields 
that dot the rugged mountains along the country's Pacific and Gulf coastlines.

Mexico's anti-narcotics effort has become increasingly militarized because 
the federal police force that spearheads the operation also has proved 
corrupt. The militarization has been criticized by human rights groups that 
say troops have often treated local peasants brutally during anti-narcotics 
sweeps.

In 1997, Mexico's newly appointed anti-narcotics czar, army Gen. Jose de 
Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was arrested. Gutierrez, now serving a long prison 
sentence, was convicted of protecting a cocaine-smuggling gang operating 
out of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso.

In his televised interview Monday, Vega Garcia defended the military's 
anti-narcotics effort, pointing out that soldiers have been credited for 
the eradication of two-thirds of all marijuana and opium poppy plants 
destroyed each year.

"Who could replace us? Who else could do this work?" he asked.
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