As Otto Pérez Molina enters office as Guatemala’s first president with a military background since the end of the civil war in 1986, his administration faces a great many challenges. The biggest challenge, as will any Guatemalan tell you, is security. Even though Guatemala’s murder rate has been going down recently, violence is still prevalent. Many of the current security problems are attributed to drug trafficking groups, most notoriously the Mexican-based Los Zetas group, who reportedly control large swaths of land in the northern part of Guatemala.
It should therefore come as no surprise that Pérez Molina, in one of his first official acts of government, declared the army to assume a new role as crime fighters in the country. In the words of the president, the army is to “achieve an interdiction of external theats and to neutralize illegal armed groups, through the use of military power, by regaining and maintaining control of the air, maritime and land domains.”
It sounds all very well and, judging by his credentials as a military man, mr. Pérez Molina might be up for the job to lead such a new law enforcement agenda. There are, however reasons enough to be a little worried about his intentions.
Using the military to combat crime is a recent trend in the region. In Honduras, which, contrary to Guatemala, finds its rate of violence increasing, soldiers are already fighting gangs. And in Mexico, of course, the drug war raging since 2006 has a significant military component.
Both cases, however, should also make mr. Pérez Molina wary. As good as his intentions may sound, a clear strategy hasn’t been declared yet to the general public. If soldiers are to be used in the civilian task of fighting crime, what will their mandate be? How will they cooperate with the police? Will there be more money invested in training and preparing the soldiers? Will there be better equipment? More international collaboration (with Mexico, for starters)?
In Mexico, the army has been widely accused of some of the most horrendous human rights violations the country has seen in a long time, largely because the armed forces are simply not prepared to operate in a civilian environment. To make matters worse, there has never been a clear cut strategy as to how they were to combat drug gangs nationwide, and much less so how they should retire from their task once the job is done.
The result is a mess: some small areas, such as the Valley of Juárez, are now effectively under military rule. Soldiers accused of human rights violations are still largely left untouched by civilian courts. And even though many Mexicans living in areas where violence in endemic are begging for military presence, others are crying for them to leave.
Guatemala has a bad history with soldiers involved in internal conflicts: for many civilians the memory of the horrors of the civil war are still very much alive. As mr. Pérez Molina was soaring towards his election victory, critics pointed out his military past, which is proof of the general distrust the army in Guatemala still provokes. From his point of view, deploying the army is a logical thing for the ex-general Pérez Molina to do. And trust in the police is generally very low in Guatemala.
But without a clear idea of what the military will be and will not be allowed to do, a repetition of the troubles as seen in the northern neighbor are a real possibility. The Guatemalan police is still unable to handle the threat of organized crime, and in order to fulfill his promise of an ‘iron hand’ policy towards crime (the principal campaign promise Guatemalans voted for him) mr. Pérez Molina has little choice but to use the army. We’d just like to know. And how much it would cost. And who will try soldiers committing violations. And how the army will collaborate with the police. And if there is an exit-strategy. And many other things at that.