CURBING ’S J. Mark Ruhl

J. Mark Ruhl is the Glenn and Mary Todd Professor of Political Sci- ence at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He has written extensively on democratization and civil- relations in Latin America and specializes in the Central American region.

The military has traditionally been a formidable obstacle to democra- tization in Central America. Having ruled for decades in and Guatemala, the armed forces continued to be the most powerful actors under elected civilian governments in the 1980s. In , the army attained political hegemony in the 1960s and long maintained a high level of influence over elected officials. In , the Sandinista Popular Army (EPS)—a product of the country’s 1979 revo- lution against the right-wing dictator Anastasio Somoza—defended the left-wing authoritarianism of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and became an influential political force largely outside civil- ian control after that regime’s electoral defeat in 1990. Costa Rica is the sole exception, having abolished its army after the 1948 civil war. In the 1980s and early 1990s, analysts of Central America expected the armed forces to retain significant political power indefinitely. Nev- ertheless, in the last decade or so, democratically chosen leaders in all four nations have largely subordinated the military to civilian control and curbed its political influence. The armed forces in the region have had to accept major reductions in their budgets and structures, and have been stripped of many of their customary privileges. This dramatic change in civil-military relations has been brought about by domestic and ex- ternal pressures that in the 1990s combined to weaken the armed forces in each of these countries. The change in U.S. policy after the end of the Cold War, along with increased domestic opposition to the armed forces, fundamentally altered the Central American political landscape, send- ing military influence into a steep decline. The military’s acceptance of civilian authority has significantly

Journal of Democracy Volume 15, Number 3 July 2004 138 Journal of Democracy boosted Central America’s potential to consolidate democracy. But the process of democratizing civil-military relations remains incomplete. Although the armed forces no longer interfere in civilian policy making, they enjoy an institutional autonomy that would be considered unac- ceptable in advanced democracies, and are subject to little effective oversight by civilian defense ministries or legislative committees. More- over, military establishments still play unduly large internal-security roles and continue to dominate intelligence gathering throughout the region—functions that involve them too deeply in domestic politics. Military officers also have not yet been held fully accountable to the rule of law, particularly with respect to past human rights abuses. In the 1980s and early 1990s, all the Central American armies were key political players. The Guatemalan army, nearly 50,000 strong in a country of 13 million, became infamous for its brutal attacks on the nation’s indigenous population during a counterinsurgency campaign against Marxist guerrillas. Even after the army set in motion a transition to civilian government in the mid-1980s, its high command maintained control of Guatemala behind a democratic façade. The Honduran army, numbering about 26,000 in a country of about six million, used “dirty- war” tactics to defeat a smaller revolutionary movement, and retained a veto over civilian policy making even after returning to the barracks in the early 1980s. The , with a force that grew to well over 60,000 soldiers (in a country of six million), carried out campaigns of heavy repression against leftist civilian groups, but proved unable to defeat the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerril- las. Nonetheless, the military retained control of national-security policy and continued to enjoy traditional prerogatives while in alliance with elected civilian governments during the 1980s. With a force of over 100,000 soldiers in a country of less than five million, Nicaragua’s Sandinista Popular Army (EPS) became the largest military institution in the region. In contrast to the other three Central American armies, the EPS was leftist in orientation and obedient to civilian authority. Sup- ported by the Soviet Union and Cuba, the EPS successfully defended the Sandinista regime against counterrevolutionary guerrillas, although U.S. pressure ultimately forced the Sandinistas into a losing electoral contest that ended the Nicaraguan Revolution.1

The Military’s Unexpected Decline

The military’s unexpected political decline over the past decade has been the product of external and internal pressures, broadly similar in all four countries. The has long been the most important foreign actor in Central America: During the 1980s, it cultivated right- wing military allies throughout the region in order to tackle the communist threat posed by the Sandinista regime and Marxist guerrilla J. Mark Ruhl 139 groups. In Nicaragua, the United States organized and financed the Contras, anti-Sandinista guerrillas who operated primarily from bases in Honduras. Guatemala’s extremely poor human rights record made it difficult for the Reagan and Bush administrations to provide more than indirect support to that country’s military, but Washington showered the Salvadoran and Honduran armed forces with aid and training. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the United States no longer needed its former Central Ameri- can military partners. Indeed, U.S. policy makers quickly recognized the , El Salvador, and Guatemala as costly and corrupt obstacles to democratization. The United States slashed military aid to Honduras, and in 1991 the U.S. ambassador to spear- headed a national campaign against military impunity that encouraged Honduran civil society and political actors to contest the armed forces’ traditional privileges. In early 1992, the United States forced the Salva- doran military, which had become completely dependent on U.S. funding, to accept a peace agreement with the FMLN that required a purge of the officer corps as well as drastic reductions in the army’s role in Salva- doran society. Although the United States had much less leverage over the Guatemalan military, the threat to abolish Guatemala’s privileged trade status, along with other regional and international pressures, helped squash a 1993 attempt by civilian President Jorge Serrano and his allies in the military high command to establish an authoritarian regime in imitation of the “institutional coup” successfully carried out the year before by President Alberto Fujimori in Peru. The United States later collaborated with the United Nations and other external actors to pro- mote the 1996 Guatemalan peace accords, which required important concessions by the armed forces. Finally, the United States government also brought its economic power to bear on postrevolutionary Nicaragua by suspending critical financial aid to President Violeta Chamorro’s government, elected in 1990, until she promised to retire General Humberto Ortega, brother of electorally defeated Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, and to bring the EPS under greater civilian control. In each of these countries, the external pressure applied by the United States was matched by the efforts of domestic actors to curtail the military’s political influence. The conservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), elected to office in El Salvador in the late 1980s, signed a peace agreement that put an end to the army’s political influ- ence. Pragmatic private-sector politicians ascendant in ARENA favored this negotiated end to the civil war because they were confident of their ability to win future free elections and because they recognized that the FMLN posed far less of a threat in the post–Cold War context.2 In fact, ARENA leaders seemed quite willing to sacrifice their military allies’ interests in the hope of restoring political stability and economic growth. The army’s dreadful record of human rights abuse and corruption, and 140 Journal of Democracy

CENTRAL AMERICA Gulf of Mexico

MEXICO BELIZE Caribbean Sea

GUATEMALA Guatemala✪ HONDURAS City Tegucigalpa ✪ ✪ EL SALVADOR NICARAGUA San Salvador Lago de Managua ✪ Managua Lago de Nicaragua

COSTA RICA ✪ Pacific Ocean San José

PANAMA its inability to defeat the FMLN, also weakened its bargaining position. Salvadoran civil society, which had begun to reemerge in the later years of the war, welcomed the demilitarization of the country’s political life. Domestic actors played a major role in reducing military influence in Honduras and Guatemala. As political space gradually expanded with limited democratization in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the armed forces in both countries came under attack from a more assertive civil society, a freer press, and bolder civilian politicians. There were exposés of human rights abuses and other misdeeds, such as corruption and criminal activity, committed by military officers during the 1980s. In calling for the reduc- tion of military prerogatives, centrist and leftist groups were often joined by the army’s former private-sector allies, who resented the armed forces’ privileged position and no longer needed the military to protect them from revolution. In Guatemala, this broad reform coalition was unified by President Serrano’s Fujimori-style 1993 power grab—an event that also split the military. In 1996, President Alvaro Arzú, a representative of the modernizing segment of the nation’s business elite, placed the military in the hands of reformist officers who favored the peace accords. In postrevolutionary Nicaragua, domestic pressure for army reform emerged from a broad antimilitary coalition on the right and in the center of the political spectrum. In the early 1990s, the EPS also saw its support decrease within the Sandinista left wing after the EPS distanced J. Mark Ruhl 141 itself from the FSLN and collaborated with the Chamorro government in suppressing irregular bands of former EPS soldiers. By the mid-1990s, the Central American armed forces found them- selves with few foreign or domestic political allies. The military coup—in either its older “hard” form or newer “soft” form—had ceased to be a viable option because of anticipated domestic resistance as well as threatened economic suffocation by the United States, the Organiza- tion of American States, and international financial institutions. The armies’ initial opposition to reform weakened as the combination of external and internal pressures forced them to make one concession after another to elected authorities. Internal military factionalization increased civilian leverage in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. In Nicaragua, EPS senior commanders recognized that the only way to guarantee the military’s survival was to sever its partisan ties to the FSLN and accept increased civilian control.3 Evidence of the Central American militaries’ political decline is not difficult to discover. Most notably, they have suffered unprecedented reductions in their size and budgets. Since 1990, civilian authorities have downsized the Salvadoran and Nicaraguan armies to only about 13,000 soldiers each, and the Honduran army to just 8,000. At 27,000 soldiers, the Guatemalan army is currently the largest in the region, but this still represents more than a one-third reduction since the mid-1990s, and an additional 40 percent contraction is scheduled for 2004. By 2002, not one of the four countries’ defense budgets exceeded 1.7 percent of GDP.4 Constitutional reforms have removed national police forces from army control in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Civilian defense min- isters have been appointed in Nicaragua and Honduras. In all four countries, forced recruitment of soldiers has ended and the jurisdiction of military courts has been narrowed to purely military matters. Military officers have lost control of lucrative state enterprises, such as the na- tional telecommunications agencies in Honduras and El Salvador.5 Moreover, civilian presidents in Guatemala and Honduras, and to a lesser extent in El Salvador, have demonstrated their authority over the armed forces by making abrupt and often wholesale changes at the top of the military hierarchy. The Central American militaries continue to lobby for their institutional interests, as all armed forces do, even in advanced democracies, but they no longer attempt to manipulate civilian decision making or expect to control security policy. Yet in spite of these signifi- cant advances, the democratization of civil-military relations in Central America remains incomplete in several important respects.

Current Patterns

The most important criterion of democratic civil-military relations is the political subordination of the armed forces to civilian authorities: 142 Journal of Democracy

The military must comply with all legal orders issued by the democrati- cally chosen chief executive and refrain from interfering in civilian policy making. But as Samuel Fitch has argued, full democratic control also requires that the armed forces accept an institutional framework of civilian supervision over their internal activities via a civilian-run de- fense ministry and appropriate legislative committees.6 In addition, civilian courts must be able to hold military personnel accountable to the rule of law. The following country-by-country analysis will show that even though Central American civil-military relations have im- proved dramatically since the early 1990s, not one of the four countries meets all the above criteria.7

El Salvador. The Salvadoran military, once so dominant in national political life, now accepts civilian control. Indeed, Salvadorans of all political persuasions praise the armed forces’ exemplary compliance with the demilitarization provisions of the 1992 peace accords. The elected civilian president is the undisputed commander-in-chief, with full freedom under the constitution to select the military’s top leader- ship. President Armando Calderón Sol of ARENA clearly exhibited this power in 1999 when he ousted the uniformed defense minister and vice- minister shortly after rejecting two of the army’s recommendations for promotion to general. Like Calderón Sol, all post–civil war Salvadoran presidents have been conservatives, but the country’s increasingly pro- fessional officer corps also appears ready to obey a leftist FMLN president should one be elected.8 External defense is the Salvadoran military’s principal constitutional mission, although the president is empowered to send the armed forces to assist the civilian police in maintaining public order under special circumstances.9 In recent years, soaring crime levels have forced Salva- doran presidents regularly to deploy soldiers to combat urban youth gangs and other criminal elements, and air force and naval units con- tribute to the work of the police by interdicting narcotics shipments. The military intelligence-gathering agency also continues to collect information and advise the president on internal security—duties that it now shares with a civilian agency that was created to end the armed forces’ monopoly on intelligence gathering. In spite of its loss of political dominance, the Salvadoran military retains nearly complete institutional autonomy in the management of its own internal affairs. No president has yet appointed a civilian as defense minister, and the defense ministry remains almost entirely a military preserve. The president sets the overall ceiling on military spending, but uniformed officers are responsible for all defense planning, budgeting, and operations. Moreover, the national-defense commission of the Sal- vadoran legislature, which is responsible for monitoring the armed forces’ use of resources, lacks the expertise and interest to do so. J. Mark Ruhl 143

Salvadoran military courts today only handle infractions of military law, such as unauthorized absence; soldiers charged with criminal of- fenses fall entirely under the jurisdiction of civilian courts. Because of a broad amnesty law passed in 1993, it has proven impossible to prosecute former military personnel for the thousands of human rights crimes com- mitted during the civil war. Nevertheless, more than a hundred officers have been cashiered on suspicion of having committed human rights abuses. The dismissals came after the 1993 reports by the UN truth com- mission and a Salvadoran ad hoc commission implicating these officers in human rights crimes. El Salvador’s postwar purge of the officer corps was unique in Central America, and in the decade since, few active-duty offic- ers have been suspected of either human rights abuses or serious corruption. The Salvadoran military thus meets the most important criterion of demo- cratic control: It is today fully subordinate to elected civilian authority. But civilian leaders have given the military too prominent a role in inter- nal security and intelligence gathering, and have failed to construct the organizational framework needed to institutionalize civilian supremacy. Civil-military relations in the other three Central American countries bear many similarities to this pattern of incomplete democratization.

Honduras. Honduran civil-military relations changed dramatically during the administrations of Liberal Party presidents Carlos Roberto Reina (1994–98) and Carlos Flores Facussé (1998–2002). Reina cut the military’s budget, ended its press-gang recruitment practices, and initi- ated the process of separating the national police from the armed forces. His successor completed the police reform and passed critical constitu- tional amendments that brought the military under the direct control of the civilian chief executive for the first time since 1957. Flores then demonstrated his authority over a divided and restive military when in 1999 he dismissed its uniformed commander and most of the army’s top echelon after senior officers clashed with the new civilian defense min- ister over personnel issues. Since then, the military has been obedient to presidential directives and has refrained from any interference in civilian policy making. Honduran presidents, like their Salvadoran counterparts, frequently order the military to assist the poorly equipped civilian police in bat- tling rising street crime and drug trafficking. Unlike in El Salvador, however, Honduran chief executives rely almost entirely on the mili- tary for intelligence gathering—because no civilian intelligence agency exists. In addition, the Honduran constitution makes the armed forces guarantors of the country’s elections against abuses by civilian politi- cians. But given the successful institutionalization of the electoral process, it is highly unlikely that this provision could be used as a pretext for military intervention in politics. The civilian defense minister is second in the chain of command and 144 Journal of Democracy has great legal authority over the defense sector. Unfortunately, how- ever, the minister is equipped with only a small civilian staff that primarily monitors the military’s finances. The constitution instead designates the uniformed council of commanders as the principal insti- tution for defense planning, coordination, and supervision. And as in El Salvador, the congressional committee charged with national defense exercises little real oversight. Consequently, despite the legal stipula- tions of civilian control, the military enjoys considerable de facto institutional autonomy. Honduran military courts only deal with violations of army rules and regulations. In recent years, civilian prosecutors have more ag- gressively pursued allegations of wrongdoing by retired and active military officers, albeit with few convictions to date. Honduran am- nesty laws, despite conflicting judicial opinions regarding their applicability, present obstacles to prosecution in cases where the mili- tary used violence against leftist organizations during the 1980s. Nonetheless, there are more than a dozen ongoing human rights pros- ecutions against former military officers, and the armed-forces leadership is no longer trying to obstruct them. In addition, ten former senior officers have been indicted for misappropriation of state funds. Unfortunately, the inefficiency and corruption of the Honduran judi- cial system impede the conviction of anyone with significant financial resources or political influence. Courts in the other Central American countries suffer from similar deficiencies.

Guatemala. Since the mid-1990s, civilian presidents have acted ag- gressively to restructure the hierarchy of the once all-powerful Guatemalan army. Alvaro Arzú (1996–2000) ousted a group of reac- tionary officers whom he believed to be corrupt and placed in top military positions those favorable to peace negotiations. His successor, Alfonso Portillo (2000–2004), removed every general officer in the Guatemalan army and appointed a new high command immediately upon taking office. Subsequently, President Portillo in alliance with former military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt politicized the armed forces by giving senior appointments to officers likely to be loyal to Portillo’s own right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) administration. Contrary to the regional trend, the corrupt FRG government also sig- nificantly increased the military’s budget and duties. To make matters worse, Portillo largely delegated day-to-day control over the armed forces to an unsavory trio of discredited former army officers allegedly associ- ated with past human rights abuses and organized crime. Current president Óscar Berger, who defeated Ríos Montt and the FRG in the November 2003 elections, recently has replaced the compromised se- nior military leadership. He has also pledged to reduce the Guatemalan armed forces to 15,500 soldiers in 2004 and to trim the military budget J. Mark Ruhl 145 to a mere 0.33 percent of GDP by 2005. About five hundred officers will be forced to leave the military. Although obedient to democratically elected governments of vary- ing political stripes, the Guatemalan armed forces retain some privileges that their Salvadoran and Honduran counterparts have lost. The Guate- malan constitution gives the military the responsibility to maintain internal as well as external security, and stipulates that the defense minister must be an active-duty officer. During peace negotiations with the armed leftist insurgents, the Arzú government agreed to offer consti- tutional modifications removing both of these provisions, but the proposal was unexpectedly turned down in a 1999 popular referendum. Many unrelated and complicated constitutional amendments had been added to the referendum, and the overconfident military-reform sup- porters did not make enough of an effort to persuade the confused electorate to vote favorably. The armed forces thus continue to play a large internal-security role, although they now act mostly in support of independent civilian police—as in El Salvador and Honduras. The military continues to be Guatemala’s main intelligence-gathering agency despite its awful reputation for human rights violations and inter- ference in the criminal-justice system. The military’s new legal superior, the civilian Strategic Analysis Secretariat, remains weak. But President Berger plans to expand civilian intelligence capabilities so as to limit military intelligence to activities relevant to the country’s external de- fense. The infamous presidential general staff (EMP), whose military personnel were implicated in many past abuses of authority, was formally abolished in late 2003, and Berger has emphasized that the civilian Secre- tariat of Administrative Affairs and Security that has taken over presidential security and intelligence is not simply the EMP under a new name. The Portillo administration caused resentment within the military by involving itself even in midlevel promotion decisions; no other Guate- malan—or Central American—civilian government has been as intrusive. By and large, however, the Guatemalan military enjoys wide institutional autonomy with respect to its internal activities. The uni- formed minister of national defense heads a ministry in which active-duty officers hold virtually all key positions. Legislative oversight of the armed forces is limited, and the constitution permits the military to keep its budget details confidential. But there are signs of change. In 2001, a government decree established a formal civil-military structure for developing defense policy, and in late 2003 Guatemala published its first official defense white paper based on military consultation with a broad array of civilian groups. All Guatemalan military personnel accused of crimes are now subject to civilian justice, but a 1996 law granted amnesty for most politically moti- vated crimes committed during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. Only a handful of people have been prosecuted for the vast number of human 146 Journal of Democracy rights crimes documented in the Catholic Church’s 1998 Recovery of His- torical Memory Project report and the state’s 1999 Historical Clarification Commission study. More-recent human rights violations have also proven hard to punish: Guatemalan human rights trials are consistently marred by the intimidation of prosecutors, witnesses, and judges. Many analysts also suspect that the clandestine groups responsible for mounting political violence against critics of the FRG since 2001 may be led by former mili- tary personnel with allies in the police and armed forces. The Portillo government did little to investigate either these charges or allegations of widespread corruption in the top ranks of the Guatemalan armed forces. The Berger government, however, has begun a high profile investigation of military corruption during the Portillo administration and also plans to create a permanent human rights office within the defense ministry.

Nicaragua. The Sandinista Popular Army changed its name to the less partisan Army of Nicaragua (EN) in 1994 and became more accept- ing of civilian authority after General Ortega retired the following year. The army formally recognizes the president as its constitutional supreme chief and accepts the defense-spending limits set by the government.10 The Nicaraguan army also scrupulously avoids interference in civilian policy making and generally carries out executive orders with alacrity. Nevertheless, the EN enjoys a margin of political independence that is unique in Central America. In contrast to the other presidents, the Nica- raguan chief executive has little ability to determine the composition of the army’s leadership. A 1994 military code negotiated with the Chamorro government permits the president only to accept or to veto the candidate for the post of military commander put forward by a coun- cil of senior officers; the chief executive has no power to nominate an alternative candidate. And once the EN’s uniformed commander is se- lected, he is guaranteed a five-year term that can be cut short only for infractions explicitly defined in the military code, such as insubordina- tion or conviction of a serious crime. The president likewise appoints all Nicaraguan generals, but each candidate for promotion is chosen by the council of senior officers—and the president has never gone against the council’s recommendation. All other promotion and staffing decisions rest with the active-duty military commander. This self-appointed military hierarchy does not always fully comply with presidential wishes.11 On more than one occasion, the Nicaraguan army ignored requests from right-wing president Arnoldo Alemán (1997– 2002) to assist civilian police in suppressing urban opposition protests. The military leadership agreed only to provide security for economi- cally strategic installations; the high command was wary of the autocratic and corrupt Alemán and argued that it was better able to judge for itself which disturbances actually threatened public order. After leaving office, Alemán was convicted of theft on a massive scale. J. Mark Ruhl 147

His politically weaker successor, conservative president Enrique Bola~nos, appears to have developed a better relationship with the army. In 2003, the military followed Bola~nos’s orders to send a unit to Iraq despite the strong objections of the FSLN and the great majority of the Nicaraguan public. (Salvadoran and Honduran forces have also served in Iraq.) The same year, the armed forces also reluctantly agreed to begin destroying their large stockpile of SAM-7 ground-to-air missiles at the request of the U.S. president. Because Nicaragua has less crime and drug trafficking than do El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, the Nicaraguan army plays a smaller role in internal security. The civilian police force responds to most crimi- nal activity, although soldiers are deployed against armed gangs operating in the countryside. Nonetheless, the military still monopolizes intelli- gence collection and analysis. A civilian Directorate of Defense Matters was formally approved in 1993 to coordinate intelligence activities, but the agency never materialized. President Alemán created a small defense ministry with extensive legal powers to supervise the armed forces, but he did not give it the resources to perform its duties. He also appointed Nicaragua’s first real civilian minister of defense, but failed to place the new minister in the formal chain of command. Although the defense ministry is gradually increasing its capabilities under Bola~nos, control of military planning, budgeting, operations, and education still effec- tively rests with the uniformed military commander. Similarly, the constantly changing defense commission of the Nicaraguan National Assembly exercises little real oversight. Since the passage of the 1994 military code, Nicaraguan military personnel accused of criminal activity have come under the jurisdic- tion of civilian courts, but during this time relatively few soldiers have been accused of human rights abuses or corruption. In spite of the ab- sence of a formal amnesty, it is unlikely that the human rights violations committed by the military and its armed opposition during the Contra War (1980–90) and its aftermath will ever be prosecuted. The estimated number of such crimes is far lower in Nicaragua than in El Salvador or Guatemala, and there is little public support for reopening this chapter in Nicaragua’s history.

Progress So Far

The Central American armed forces, with the partial exception of the Nicaraguan army, have politically subordinated themselves to elected civilian authority. In all four countries, the military is a much smaller institution than it was during the 1980s, and exerts far less political influence. While these developments have advanced the democratiza- tion of civil-military relations in Central America, the armed forces’ internal-security duties and control of intelligence services still give 148 Journal of Democracy them significant influence in domestic politics. Although civilian presi- dents have begun to exert influence over senior military promotions in three of the countries discussed, the legislative committees and the two new civilian defense ministries are in no condition to develop defense policy or to monitor the inner workings of the armed forces. Further- more, Central America’s deeply flawed judicial systems have not yet proven capable of holding more than a handful of military officers ac- countable to the rule of law. Based on this analysis, how should civil-military relations in these four Central American nations be classified in 2004? Samuel Fitch has designed a useful fourfold typology for comparing civil-military rela- tions in different countries:12 • Democratic control. The military is politically subordinate to elected civilian authority, supervised by a civilian-led defense ministry and congressional committee, and subject to the rule of law. Examples include the United States, Great Britain, and Denmark. • Conditional subordination. The military avoids overt interven- tion in political questions but reserves the right to intervene in a crisis and exercises indirect influence on nonmilitary policies. The armed forces also enjoy a quasimonopoly on security policy and a high degree of institutional autonomy. Examples include Ecuador and Venezuela. • Military tutelage. The armed forces participate in the policy-mak- ing process and exercise oversight over civilian authorities, although the military’s veto does not extend to all policy areas. Civilian leaders seek military allies but exercise little control over the armed forces. Examples include under José Sarney, and Turkey. • Military control. De facto political subordination of a nominally civilian government to effective military control. Examples include Panama under Manuel Noriega, and Pakistan. Neither “military control” nor “military tutelage” characterizes the current state of civil-military relations in any of the Central American countries. This in itself is a great achievement for the region, in light of its history of military dominance. Although there are some variations in army privileges and influence among the four countries, all now appear to fall in between the “democratic control” and “conditional subordina- tion” categories in Fitch’s typology. Their armies have too much institutional autonomy vis-`a-vis civilian supervision and face too little legal accountability to meet the requirements of “democratic control,” but they do not exercise the influence on nonmilitary policies or enjoy the quasimonopoly over security affairs that defines “conditional subor- dination.” With respect to Latin America as a whole, this ranking would place the four Central American states ahead of nations such as Ecuador or Venezuela, where the armed forces are still described as conditionally subordinate, but behind countries such as Argentina or Uruguay, which are much closer to achieving full democratic control of their militaries. J. Mark Ruhl 149

Although the four Central American countries belong in the same range within Fitch’s typology, El Salvador and Honduras are clearly closer to “democratic control” than the other two. As noted earlier, Sal- vadorans from across the political spectrum praise their military’s new professionalism and democratic attitude. While the Honduran army— still in the process of adjusting to increased civilian control since 1999—has won few such accolades, its precipitous decline in resources and influence have left it the smallest and weakest force in the region. Daily newspapers in San Salvador and Tegucigalpa seldom mention the armed forces except with respect to their involvement in crimefighting or peacekeeping; in Managua and Guatemala City, however, the mili- tary still regularly appears as a subject of discussion in the press.

Civilian Responsibility

As expected, military officers throughout Central America initially contested their loss of privileges and influence. But with every ally these officers lost and with every concession they made, their vulner- ability became more apparent, and eventually they could no longer resist the changes underway. Indeed, some civil-military reform mea- sures—such as the institutional separation of the armed forces from the police—gained significant support within the region’s officer corps.13 Ironically, responsibility for present failures to advance the democ- ratization of civil-military relations now rests on civilian, not military, shoulders. Once the region’s armed forces shrank and forfeited their political influence, civilian politicians and civil society lost interest in military reform. Most presidents seemed satisfied once they had estab- lished personal control over the armed forces, and saw no need to institutionalize civilian authority. Instead, Central American leaders have concentrated on more pressing issues of economic policy and crime control. The public exerted little pressure on public officials to con- struct robust civilian defense ministries, to enhance the capabilities of congressional defense committees, or to establish civilian control of intelligence collection. Moreover, public demands for the prosecution of military officers for past human rights crimes faded with time, except within the human rights community. The public image of the armed forces in Nicaragua and El Salvador began to improve as both institu- tions responded effectively to natural disasters, such as 1998’s Hurricane Mitch. Most Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Salvadorans also welcomed the military’s assistance when street crime exploded in the 1990s. The Guatemalan public even blocked further demilitarization in 1999 by voting down constitutional amendments that would have strengthened civilian control. Later that year, Guatemalans voted into power the FRG—led by Portillo and Ríos Montt—which clearly had no interest in reforming the military or holding it accountable to the rule of law. Only 150 Journal of Democracy in 2003 did the Guatemalan public finally reject the FRG and elect a new government committed to restarting military reform. External pressure to continue Central American military reform also weakened. Except for training Central American civilians in defense matters at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies in Washington, D.C., and trying to strengthen the region’s judicial systems generally, it seemed as if most U.S. officials no longer cared much about further democratizing civil-military relations in the region. Instead, the United States once again strengthened its ties to the Central American militar- ies, including that of former adversary Nicaragua, so as to gain their cooperation in counternarcotics, counterterrorism, and peacekeeping operations. The United Nations did join international human rights groups in criticizing Guatemala’s failure to institute the military re- forms promised in the 1996 peace accords, but to little effect until the Berger government took office in 2004. Fortunately, the United States has begun to show renewed interest in Central American military reform and has strongly endorsed Berger’s plans to downsize and modernize the Guatemalan armed forces. Although the democratization of civil-military relations in Central America remains incomplete, considerable progress has been achieved in a relatively short time. Over the past decade, the political influence of the region’s armed forces has declined dramatically. But to complete the civil-military reform process, politicians, civil society, and external ac- tors must follow Guatemalan president Berger’s lead and make it a much higher priority. Most importantly, Central American civilian leaders must allocate the resources to build executive, legislative, and judicial insti- tutions competent to oversee the military on a permanent basis.

NOTES

1. For more information on the Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, and Honduran cases, see the following articles by the author: “The Guatemalan Military After the Peace Accords: The Fate of Reform Under Arzú and Portillo,” Latin American Politics and Society 47 (forthcoming Spring 2005); “Civil-Military Relations in Post- Sandinista Nicaragua,” Armed Forces and Society 30 (Fall 2003): 117–39; and “Redefining Civil-Military Relations in Honduras,” Journal of Interamerican Stud- ies and World Affairs 38 (Spring 1996): 33–66. On the Salvadoran case, see Philip J. Williams and Knut Walter, Militarization and Demilitarization in El Salvador’s Transition to Democracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997).

2. William Stanley, The Protection Racket State: Elite Politics, Military Extor- tion, and Civil War in El Salvador (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 220.

3. Author’s interviews with the former commander of the Nicaraguan army, General (ret.) Joaquín Cuadra (1995–2000), Managua, July and December, 2001.

4. International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Military Balance, 2003–2004 (London: Oxford University Press, 2003), 378. J. Mark Ruhl 151

5. All four Central American militaries operate pension funds that own a variety of enterprises, which are, in effect, state property. The Salvadoran and Nicaraguan funds are relatively well managed, but those in Honduras and Guatemala have risked bankruptcy because of mismanagement and corruption by senior officers.

6. J. Samuel Fitch, Armed Forces and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 37–38.

7. Decisions about what information to use in assessing civil-military relations are mostly based on the indicators provided in Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 94–97.

8. Author’s interview with Salvadoran Lieutenant-Colonel José Arévalo, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, April 2003.

9. The Salvadoran army, like its three Central American counterparts, also performs civic action tasks designed to promote development, such as environ- mental protection and education and health campaigns.

10. In 2002, Nicaragua had the lowest absolute (US$33 million) and per capita levels of defense expenditure in Central America. See IISS, The Military Balance, 2003–2004, 315, 378.

11. Author’s confidential interview with senior retired Nicaraguan military officer, Managua, July 2001.

12. J. Samuel Fitch, Armed Forces and Democracy, 36–42.

13. Author’s interview with former Guatemalan minister of national defense, General (ret.) Marco Tulio Espinosa (1999–2000), Guatemala City, July 2001.