RIGHTS-HONDURAS: Civilian Defence Minister Says the Party’s Over

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Jun 19 1999 (IPS) - The first civilian defence minister in the history of Honduras, Edgardo Dumas, said that in the five months he had been in his post, many things had changed among the armed forces, which were used to “a culture of fear, rather than respect and dialogue.

“These months have not been easy, because many officers believed that my designation was merely decorative, and that the parties and sprees would go on as before,” Dumas said in an interview with IPS. “But I have a very effective weapon: the constitution and the powers it grants me.”

In January, the parliament of this impoverished Central American country approved a constitutional amendment that did away with the autonomy enjoyed by the army for more than three decades. It also eliminated the post of chief of the armed forces, whose functions were transferred to the defence ministry, to be headed by a civilian.

Dumas, an attorney with ties to the Inter-American Press Society, has been labelled by the military brass as a “fussy man” who makes them get up early, survey battalions, and improve relations between the rank and file and officialdom.

Dubbed by the press “the man with the cane,” Dumas enjoys broad support from civil society, human rights groups and President Carlos Flores himself. The government’s critics often describe him as the best minister on the cabinet.

Dumas told IPS of his aim to shore up the prestige of the armed forces, redefine the policy of national security, and strengthen civil-military relations, in order to vanquish longstanding ‘mutual allergies once and for all.”

Dumas said some officers had complained about the lack of funds to pay journalists and media organs that gave the military good coverage. But “I underlined that such things had come to an end here, that they had to set an example internally, and clean up the profession.

“Just imagine, how are they going to talk about image if the kitchens in the academies and some battalions are dirty, full of flies? I surprised them when I went to visit (the kitchens) and saw all that filth,” he added. “I believe they should learn to love themselves, and not play at doublespeak externally.”

Ramon Custodio, president of the non-governmental Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH), told IPS that Dumas had stamped “a very civilian pace on the military.

“They have tried to get him sacked, and have even sprung a few attacks,” he said. “But every attempt has been aborted, because these hot-headed gentlemen do not understand that the Cold War is over.

“The armed forces must be willing to accept a greater openness with society, clean their record as human rights violators, and accept that for the first time in this country they have the constitutional duty to obey the laws and be subordinated to civ ilian power,” Custodio asserted.

Dumas is currently investigating a conservative group of officers who recently set off a crisis within the army.

The insubordination, lead by colonels Rodolfo Interiano Portillo and Eugenio Romero, came in response to plans for a drastic overhaul of the laws governing the army and a review of the defence budget.

President Flores backed up Dumas last week, meeting behind closed doors with Portillo and Romero to warn them that it was the civilian government which now pulled the strings, and that they owed obedience to the laws and the constitution.

Dumas said the probe was moving ahead, and did not rule out possible changes among the military brass. The aim, he added, was “to make it clear that I am the one giving the orders” in this ministry.

Dumas made his position vis-a-vis the military clear from the very start, by setting up his office in the building of the Joint General Staff, instead of far from that centre of command as was customary in the past.

The minister said the coming stage would be critical, because he was going to attempt to “restructure the budget” of the armed forces – calculated at 40 million dollars – to “employ it in a rational and just manner.”

For Dumas, the budget must be closely monitored and controlled, in order to create a “culture” of correct handling of public resources within the military.

“I was just sent the budget, and I am going to review it payroll by payroll, expense by expense. And I can give my assurances that not just anybody will do whatever they please with these funds.

“The armed institution as such, particularly the troops and their installations, have been neglected, and I am not going to allow any more injustices along those lines,” he added.

Misuse of the armed forces budgetary funds has been denounced on numerous occasions, giving rise to an investigation by the attorney-general’s office of the supposed existence of bogus payrolls. Dumas did not dismiss the suspicions of the attorney- general’s office as necessarily unfounded.

“We are going to check,” he said. “In the past, the armed forces’ paymaster’s office handled the funds. But with the recent constitutional reforms, that obligation rests with me, although at the start the military did not really agree with that.”

Another of the defence minister’s plans is to investigate, when the time is ripe, businesses and companies that have remained in the hands of the armed forces.

But Dumas said he was aware of what he was doing, that he was “moving slowly because he was in a hurry,” and that he was determined to carry out a revolution in his ministry, based on the truth.