CENTRAL AMERICA: Armies Future Poses Dilemma

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

SAN JOSE, Aug 9 1996 (IPS) - Government leaders in Central America are confronting the dilemma of what to do with their armies, within the framework of democracy and the new civilian-military relations in the region.

There have been suggestions all armies should be dissolved, as in the case of Costa Rica, but this is regarded as too ambitious a goal by some nations. Greater civilian control over the armed forces and the creation of civil intelligence councils to regulate the purchase and sale of arms, are other options being considered.

At a recent seminar on civilian-military relations in small democracies, held in Costa Rica and sponsored by the Arias Foundation for Peace, representatives of 26 countries in Africa, Asia, South and Central America, concluded that the military is suffering “a crisis of identity”.

There are several approaches to resolve this problem, said Joaquin Tacson, director of the Arias Foundation, an organization headed by Nobel Prize winner Oscar Arias.

“The most conscientious response is to reevaluate civilian- military relations, based not only on a recycling of the concept, but also on future projections that address past failures,” he said.

Relations between the military and civilians vary greatly from one country to another in central America.

In Nicaragua, the Popular Sandinista Army has become an intermediary in internal conflicts and Alejandro Bendana, of the Center for International Studies of Nicaragua, said that the U.S. intervention from 1979-1990 to overthrow the Sandinista government , had a big impact on the situation.

“In Nicaragua, society is so polarized that the army has acted as the depolarizing force, and now plays a role which is not really its own,” he said. An additional problem was the future of demobilized soldiers – a question also facing El Salvador.

In Honduras, the Armed Forces have been gradually ceding space to civilians, but their growing involvement in business has put them in a better economic position. The Honduran military has been acting as business “advisors” to their counterparts in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador, delegates leanred at the seminar.

Although the economic influence of Central American armies on the economies has not been estimated yet, experts on the subject have noted that the transformation is due to the crisis of identity that they are undergoing.

Leticia Salomon, an expert on the subject of the military in Honduras, said that as long civilian governments did not establish clear rules for their armies, “the military will be around for along time”.

According to Mexican sociologist Raul Benitez, the “virus of militarism” will remain latent in Latin America as long as civilian governments keep threatening democracy a establish the bases for a new military doctrine adapted to the new times.

delegates to the seminar looked at the systems in overseas countries, sucxh as the netherlands, where military spending is controlled by Parliament.

Bjorn Hagelin, of the University of Uppsala in Sweden, warned that the biggest threat is not the military taking power, but rather in the hidden links that armies have with political leaders.

“This is very dangerous, because it seems that civilian leaders in Central America do not know much about security matters,” he said.