ABSTRACT
The military is no doubt one of the most important political actors in Latin America. Its weight as rulers, as guardians of the Constitution, or as arbitrators among political forces and parties has been constant in the region. It was also a crucial factor in the authoritarian states that dominated South American politics in the 1970s. During that decade, repressive military governments ruled in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Central America (with the exception of Costa Rica). Even in Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela-where the formal political subordination of the military to civilian authorities is usually taken for granted-, the relevance of the armed forces and their key role in preserving the political stability of these countries cannot be ignored. In fact, only in the case of Costa Rica it is possible to say that the military is not a decisive actor within the political system, due to the suppression of the military institution back in 1948.1
However, the notoriety of the armed forces and their accumulated political privileges in Latin America stand somehow in contradiction with the republican and liberal components required by a consolidated liberal democracy. This is especially so if one of the privileges enjoyed by the military institution is to be unaccountable to the judicial branch, by virtue of the military “fuero” that allows the armed forces to have their own justice system: the military judicial system. The military “fuero” has existed since the Spanish colonial period, and is still very much in place. It locates military courts above civilian ones, even after the democratic transition experienced by most Latin American countries. This is a huge obstacle to the protection of civil rights precisely because the military is constantly denounced as the institution responsible for most human rights violations-certainly in the pre transition period, but also during the new democracies’ existence-, whereas for most observers and NGOs the military judges have proved to be unreliable in punishing the officers responsible for those abuses.
