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Re: Ejercito Mexicano y su papel en Chiapas

Vladimir,
Once again I have a hard time following your logic.  I understand that
individual soldiers in any army are not the originators of the policies they
uphold and enforce.  Accounts of the Mexican Revolution speak of soldiers
changing sides frequently and arbitrarily, depending on the immediate
dangers of each moment rather than on the ideology of, say, Carranzistas vs.
Zapatistas.  However, power is diffuse and works on many levels.  How can I
believe that the soldiers who gang raped 3 indigenous women last June in
Altimirano were in any way  "conscientious of [the army's] role in the
capitalist state as a repressive force, and [have] resigned that role"?  Not
to mention the military authorities who have made sure that the perpetrators
are not brought to justice.   The reports that have filtered in on this list
of arbitrary acts of violence and property damage against the Chiapaneco
people, and of the increase in prostitution that follows the army (implying
the economic desperation of local women) suggest that the army, that is, the
individual soldiers and their commanders active in given areas, act with
impunity and have the power to do great harm to civilian populations. 
         The soldier-as-victim thesis that you advance is valid in the case
of Vietnam as well, but from the Vietnamese side, apart from the overarching
ideology of  the U.S. intervention, local and arbitrary atrocities, and
actions such as destroying villages and fields, and let us not forget rape
and the upheavals rape causes in family and gender systems as well as the
personal consequences for victims, all this meant that no matter what the
outcome of the war, that the existing way of life had been destroyed for
many, with nothing provided in its place.

        Of course I would hope that soldiers would "renounce the repressive
role" and join the people whom they presently oppress.  But I wonder if you
are not confusing rhetoric and reality.  Aguayo's piece speaks to the
complexity of the military's position in Mexico but does not (in my reading)
suggest that the military is a force for democratic change.  Just as the
Mexican army does not want another Tlatelolco, the U.S. army since the 1970s
has not wanted another Vietnam.  So we have had "surgical strikes,"
overnight invasions, cover-ups, and the Gulf War.  respect for the value of
human life has not increased.

As Rafael E. always says so congenially, Cheers!
--Elissa Rashkin


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Peter Rashkin

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