Argentine soldiers carrying out construction projects this week in a Buenos Aires slum (photo from La Nación).
This is a new role for Argentina’s army, which has played almost no internal role in the country since the last military government left power in 1983. Many Argentines view the military’s near-total exclusion from policing and public works projects as crucial to the last 30 years’ consolidation of democracy.
Now, though, under the powerful current Army chief, Gen. César Milani–who has won strong support from President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner–soldiers are starting to participate more in development and security projects.
The latest project, in the La Carbonilla neighborood, involves a series of public works, but not policing, the daily La Nacion explains.
“Equipped with picks, shovels, and a backhoe, they are going to open streets, finish installing sewers, and build community spaces like a plaza and a sports field. The neighbors say they are concerned about the existence of there or four houses from which paco [a cocaine derivative somewhat similar to crack] is sold. But the soldiers are prohibited from involving themselves in security questions, in order not to violate the interior security law. For that reason, they will only be in the neighborhood by day: Monday to Friday, from 8:00 to 3:00.”
As they carry out these projects, the Army is being accompanied by two civil-society groups closely aligned with President Fernández: La Cámpora, a youth organization founded by the President’s son; and the more politically radical wing of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group founded by mothers of people disappeared by the 1976-1983 dictatorship.
Opponents of the Fernández government are worried about what this project means for civil-military relations in Argentina where, under Gen. Milani, the Army has begun to play a more political role. Today in the opposition-leaning La Nación, columnist Joaquín Morales Solá pens a dire warning about these public-works projects’ implications.
“The Army is doing jobs that could easily be done by other state bodies, unless the state admits that it has lost all of its abilities during the decade of greatest statism since 1983. It is harder to explain why the military, which was formed to defend national borders, has ended up working as masons, plumbers, or electricians. The underlying message is that the army ceased to be professional, in order to become a political faction of the current administration.”
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