MEXICO CITY – A general is among the nearly 4,000 officers and men who have deserted from the Mexican army during the past 6½ years, Milenio newspaper reported Monday, citing government documents.

The defense department opened legal proceedings for desertion against 3,972 soldiers between 2003 and July 2009.

Among the soldiers being investigated are a general and more than 1,000 other officers.

The report does not specify the number of those cases that have arisen since December 2006, when newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon began deploying tens of thousands of soldiers to battle Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.

Since then, there have been numerous clashes between well-armed cartel gunmen and troops, in which – up until last May – 101 soldiers have died.

Calderon’s war against organized crime has resulted in around 15,000 deaths, according to unofficial accounts.

Soldiers are mainly young and their pay, although it is more than the average earnings of most of Mexico’s population, is not high.

One of the measures taken to try and eradicate corruption among other security forces has been to increase police salaries to prevent them from being recruited by drug traffickers.

To prevent desertions, the army has authorized about 7,000 mortgages so far during Calderon’s term, and has increased by about 86 percent the number of military personnel who receive medicine at armed forces installations.

Milenio reported that the desertions that have most affected the Mexican army were those of more than 30 members of a U.S.-trained special forces unit that became the core of “Los Zetas,” the enforcement arm of the feared Gulf drug cartel. EFE