The General in WikiLeaks

The origin: When Felipe Calderón decided in December 2006 that the Army would be the central protagonist of the Joint Operations against the organized crime gangs, the military institute entered into a restructuring period that has not yet concluded. To throw solders into the streets, he assumed, among other things, that they would see society, as they always have done, without being seen and judged. Since then they have occupied a place in the public arena. They got mixed up in a new game, with rules they did not recognize. They assumed risks, like that of incomprehension or lack of prestige, but they were doing a job that is crucial to the viability of the country, for its continuation as an independent nation.

A fundamental part of this restructuring has been establishing new relations with the different social sectors, with the other departments that make up the Security Cabinet, with the members of the Congress of the Union, with the national and foreign press, with the organizations that defend human rights, with the citizens. The Army is still a relevant institutional force and has had to strengthen its jurisdiction as well as its special forces. The installations of the SEDENA, the dispatches of the commands, opened their doors. It has launched a conversation that, for the health of the Republic, cannot be interrupted. As a result of this dialogue, nothing of what has been said in the diplomatic communications revealed by WikiLeaks is entirely original. Everyone knows the preoccupation of the secretary general Galván with the legal framework in which operatives are deployed and his anxiety that there are fraudulent leaks on the part of corrupt police officers. That’s why it is important that the cables pirated by Julian Assange’s hackers not be a pretext for launching a media offensive against the Army.

Uncle Sam: What has not been said in the WikiLeaks cables, but is an irrefutable truth, is the more complex relationship that the Mexican Army maintains with the army of the United States. The contact is daily and multidimensional, which does not mean that it is simple. There is a historical context with profound wounds that left scars that continue to exist. The Boy Heroes, cadets of the Military College, were killed by North American soldiers that invaded the country and surrounded half of the national territory. It will be said that it is insane to stay attached to the past, but to ignore it, to act as if it had not happened, is suicide, because the geopolitical interests of the North Americans have varied in form, not in content. They wanted and want to control the countries of the continent, and one of the alternatives to achieving this is to assume direct control of the armed forces of each country; Mexico is no exception. One of their favorite tools is the discreet management of information that intelligence compiles with the devices of the latest generation, which are distributed in Mexico according to a complex system of rewards and punishments. The tension, therefore, is inevitable.

To cooperate with the North Americans without lacerating national sovereignty is a titanic task. Among other reasons because not even on that side of the Río Grande is there a unified front. Although they all look to consolidate the North American hegemony, each authority, each agency, has its own style. We must interact, that is, not discuss; we must maintain fluid communication — but to receive helicopters does not assume accepting that they, the North Americans, make the decisions, nor that gringo forces operate camouflaged as Mexican soldiers and marines. The gringo ideal is not to end drug trafficking but to reinforce its interior security. They do not have friends, without interests, but that is already known.

Colofón: The problem with Calderón’s strategy in the war against drugs is not that the Army has left its barracks. It is, as we have said, that it has not been an integral strategy. Months and years pass and the police forces do not regenerate themselves, nor does the judicial system clean itself up, nor do the prisons recuperate. Months and years pass and customs continue to be rat nests. Not one business of renown has been prosecuted for money laundering, and actions against political shelter are timid and isolated. That is the problem.