Posted on 06/18/2007 4:41:43 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Failure to track the thousands of deserters may lead to a pool of hit men, critics say
MEXICO CITY — The most ruthless gang of drug-cartel hit men in Mexico are deserters from the army's elite. But the Zetas, as the ex-soldiers are known, may not be the only troops who abandoned their posts to work for the cartels.
In the eight years since the Zetas were organized, more than 120,000 Mexican soldiers have deserted the army, according to the government's records. Yet the country's defense officials have made little effort to track their whereabouts, security experts said, creating a potential pool of military-trained killers for the drug-trafficking gangs wreaking havoc in the country.
"Even if just 5 percent of those join the cartels, that's an army of hit men," said Georgina Sanchez, an independent security analyst in Mexico City.
High desertion rates within Mexico's armed forces, usually blamed on poor salaries and harsh living conditions, are nothing new. Until receiving a raise this year, rank-and-file soldiers made $330 a month, less than many police officers.
Soldiers are also routinely denied access to rights such as family and medical leave while they are forced to work horrendous hours and humiliated by their superiors, said former Gen. Jose Francisco Gallardo, a military scholar.
"Traditionally, the vast majority of desertions were due to mistreatment in the army," said Gallardo, who spent nine years in a military prison after publicly proposing the creation of an ombudsman to curb human rights abuses within the army.
Gallardo and other experts, however, say the problem of desertions has grown dramatically since the military was first deployed to battle the drug gangs in the late 1990s.
Prior to 1994, an average of 50,000 soldiers deserted during each six-year presidential administration, said Idalia Gomez, an investigative journalist who is writing a book on the drug war. That figure jumped to 114,000 during the 1994-2000 government of former President Ernesto Zedillo, according to Defense Secretariat records obtained through freedom of information laws.
High vulnerability
A reluctance by soldiers to act as police may have played a role, some experts said. Of the 4,890 soldiers assigned to the federal police force to help combat traffickers during the 2000-06 administration of former President Vicente Fox, all but 10 deserted, said Gomez, citing Defense Secretariat figures.
"Many are scared," said retired Gen. Luis Garfias Magaña, noting that hundreds of soldiers have been killed in clashes with the cartels over the past decade. "Before, a few died combating guerrilla groups," he said. "Now, they're fighting a veritable war against the traffickers."
The danger has escalated under the seven-month administration of President Felipe Calderon, who has sent more than 25,000 troops and federal police to areas under siege by the traffickers. In the process, experts say, he has also made the soldiers vulnerable to the cartels' corrupting influence.
"It's part of the larger issue which the military has always feared," said Roderic Ai Camp, an expert on Mexico's armed forces at Claremont McKenna College in California.
"It exposes all those people who come in contact with the anti-trafficking mission to corruption."
Gomez said she believes that rival gangs were already using former soldiers to combat the Zetas. She pointed to a video aired on YouTube in March showing men with assault rifles and combat fatigues interrogating two captives, who identified themselves as Zetas. Soon after, another video appeared of unidentified captors torturing and decapitating a man with a "Z" painted on his stomach.
"You can tell by how they act," she said of the captors. "These aren't police. And they certainly aren't local ranch hands."
Desertion rate of 8% a year
Since 2000, an average of 16,000 soldiers a year, out of a total force of about 195,000, deserted the army, according to Defense Secretariat figures obtained through freedom of information laws. That's a desertion rate of about 8 percent a year.
In contrast, 3,301 soldiers deserted the U.S. Army in 2006, or 0.65 percent of the total force of about 500,000 troops, according to the Army's press office. The same year, 428 soldiers were court-martialed and convicted of desertion.
Mexican army officials recognize the problem. But they say the sheer numbers of deserters make it impossible to keep track of them, much less bring them to trial. Desertion is punishable by a prison sentence of 2 months to 12 years.
But Garfias, who presided over a court-martial in the late 1990s, said he didn't know of any cases in which soldiers had been punished for desertion. "There aren't enough jails in this country to house that many people," he said.
Defense officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment or clarification of military policies related to desertions. But they have attempted to downplay the problem in the past, saying the vast majority of deserters are rank-and-file soldiers and that many quit before finishing basic training. Most cite economic reasons for leaving, including using skills acquired in the army to get better-paying jobs as truck drivers or security guards.
Of the 99,767 soldiers who deserted from 2001 through November 2006, 90 percent were privates, according to defense department figures.
marionlloyd@gmail.com
Too Low.
Zetas Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Calling BS on this one. Low pay in the military doesn’t turn you into a drug cartel hit man. Someone must be promoting a new book.
Compares pretty well with my $81/month for U.S. E-1 pay in 1965.
Soldiers are also routinely denied access to rights such as family and medical leave while they are forced to work horrendous hours and humiliated by their superiors, said former Gen. Jose Francisco Gallardo, a military scholar.
Yeah; sounds just like what we had to "endure" for said $81, at boot camp.
Compares pretty well with my $81/month for U.S. E-1 pay in 1965.
Soldiers are also routinely denied access to rights such as family and medical leave while they are forced to work horrendous hours and humiliated by their superiors, said former Gen. Jose Francisco Gallardo, a military scholar.
Yeah; sounds just like what we had to "endure" for said $81, at boot camp.
/s
The barbarians are inside the gates, RK.
$330 a month for a private doesn’t sound that low. Hardship alone won’t make a man desert and it certainly won’t turn a man into a mafia hit man.
What might cause anyone to desert would be needless humiliation, and hardship that was perceived to be for no purpose, and what certainly might do it would be the suspicion that your superiors have already themselves sold out.
I knew a fellow who worked with the Mexican air force as a civilian technician, and he says he always knew there were certain flights they should not ask questions about, certain cargos they should not be interested in. He was encouraged by his family to get out, because to stay, they believed, meant he would eventually be corrupted. Not by mafia, but by his own bosses. He eventually did get out, because he believed it too.
Mexico is devolving into Hamastan.
Yet another example of failure by the Mexican “Government”!
Good thing you're not part of any Presidential debate with talk like that, lest you be called a kook! Blackbird.
Proud to be a KOOK in defence of my country...thanks.
Thanks for posting this. My Sheriff told us 2 years ago that among those busted in the drug cartel pot farms growing all over the NW, that a couple people were MS-13, and some were AWOL MEXICAN MILITARY.
Yeah, it’s true.
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2006/09/mexican-border-has-moved-800-miles.html
Wouldn’t happen if they were in Iraq fighting along side their so called ally.
Good point. I'm still waiting for one reason why Mexico is our 'ally'.
No good reason I guess. I understand Nazi agents were in Mexico during WW2.
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