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2. Military Rule
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29 2 Mil i tary Rule These all died in faith, not hav ing re ceived what was prom ised, but hav ing seen it and greeted it from afar, and hav ing ac knowl edged that they were strang ers and ex iles on the earth. For peo ple who speak thus make it clear that they are seek ing a home land . . . they de sire a bet ter coun try. Heb. 11:13–16, RSV L atin Amer ica’s great trag edy is that there isn’t a woman or man my age in the re gion who has not lived under mil i tary rule. In fact, the ar bi trary and ca pri cious use of mil i tary power in do mes tic af fairs has been a hall mark of our home lands. While the American cit i zen en joys the safety of the Posse Co mit a tus Act, which for bids the American armed forcesfromdo mes ticlawen force mentop er a tions,Latin American pop u la tions are and have al ways been at the mercy of their own military’s whims.1 From one end of the con ti nent to the other, al ways em ploy ing the lat est in weap ons tech nol ogy and mil i tary train ing, Latin American sol diers have waged war on their own peo ple since our countries’ in de pen dence days. Look north ward from Bra zil, and there is the bloody Gua te ma lan civil war, which de stroyed 450 Mayan vil lages, killed 200,000 cit i zens, and dis placed a mil lion more.2 Look south, where the so-called Dirty War in Ar gen tina (1976–83) killed 9,000 to 30,000 cit i zens.3 The num bers are still mud dled by se crecy. Next door, some 2,279 Chi leans were mur dered dur ing the Pi no chet re gime, which also tor tured 31,947 and sent 1,312 into exile.4 The aston ish ing thing about Latin Amer ica is not how often mil i tary rule has taken place, but how wide spread the prac tice 30 Military Rule has been. In fact, with the sin gle ex cep tion of French Gui ana, which is still a French pro tec to rate, every sin gle Latin American coun try has had strong ci vil ian dic ta tors or mil i tary rul ers for most of the twen ti eth cen tury. It is hard for my American friends to im a gine the kind of re la tion ship Latin Americans have had with their mil i tary. American cit i zens see in their armed forces a be nign shield against the foreign foe. Since the U.S. mil i tary is sel dom used do mes ti cally, the American pub lic as a rule is quite grate ful for their men and women in uni form. In fact, American sol diers are held in high es teem and many are af forded the high est civic hon ors for ser vice to the coun try. Some go on to serve in na tional elected of fices or state leg is la tures. Oth ers are govern ors of their home states. A few who have seen bat tle have also be come com mander in chief at the White House; at least five come to mind who have served dur ing my life time: Dwight D. Ei sen hower, John F. Ken nedy, Rich ard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush. After at tend ing sev eral Me mo rial Day con certs on the West Lawn of the United States Cap i tol, I can under stand why. American sol diers are will ing to die in the de fense of free dom. They rise to pro tect the very heart of our dem o cratic prac tice—the abil ity of a peo ple to de ter mine its own fu ture, free of ex ter nal threat. Since U.S. cit i zens are not usu ally on the re ceiv ing end of such might, there is great com fort in know ing that the most pow er ful mil i tary in the world is watch ing our back as a threat ap pears. And on Me mo...