US Police Operations/Latin America
Klare, Mike
In the report of the spring 1969 Presidential Mission for the Western Hemisphere, Nelson Rockefeller predictably speaks of the danger of 'communist subversion' to Latin America. In an assessment...
...in10 fact, U.S...
...Thus, a cycle of terrorist actions and repressive counter-reactions tend to polarize and unsettle the political situation, creating more fertile ground for radical solutions among large segments of the population...
...6 In his "Recommendations for Action," Rockefeller asserts that it is in the interests of the United States to upgrade the police forces of Latin America...
...In 1962, President Kennedy established the Inter-American Police Academy at Fort Davis in the Panama Canal Zone...
...61-62...
...2 Rockefeller's concern with the urban battlefield reflects the icreasing audacity of urban guerrillas-especially in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina--and the projections of America's defense analysts...
...3 In this kind of environment, accroding to U.S...
...Physical cover is multidimensional due to walls, roofs, basements, and utility passages...
...98, 170...
...Professor Burks, in his report to the Senate Subcommittee, indicated that, "As of March, 1967, the Public Safety Division of AID operated public safety programs in fourteen Latin American countries and in Guyana and Jamaica...
...13 From what is known of IPA, it is clear that the major emphasis at the Academy is on urban counterinsurgency and on the control of strikes and demonstrations...
...The U.S...
...For those who know how to take advantage of it, the urban milieu can be as protective as the jungle...
...Police well integrated with the population and using minimum force can often control a crisis before it can escalate to dangerous proportions...
...27-29...
...police operations in Latin America have been expanding ever since John F. Kennedy changed the emphasis of U.S...
...Unemployment is high, especially among the young, ranging as high as 25 to 40 per cent in some countries....These sprawling urban areas of the hemisphere spawn restlessness and anger which are readily exploited by the varying forces that thrive on trouble...
...Consequently, they have become increasingly less capable of providing either the essential psychological support or the internal security that is their major function...
...In an assessment of the military situation, Rockefeller notes that the native armed forces "have gradually improved their capabilities for dealing with Castro-type agrarian guerrillas...
...7. 8. Ibid., pp...
...and David Sanford's article on IPA in The New Republic (Feb...
...Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on American Republics Affairs, Survey of the Alliance for Progress...
...19, 1967) and Impacto (same date...
...II (Oct., 1968), pp...
...The IPA Faculty," IPA Review (Jan., 1967) p. 11...
...9. See the author's "Urban Counterinsurgency: An Introduction," Viet-Report, vol...
...These advisers (whose relations to Latin police forces is comparable to that of U.S.Special Forces personnel who counsel Latin military forces) are usually drawn from local, state and Federal law enforcement agencies in the U.S...
...activity is training...
...Police Operations (criminalistics, communications, border control, intelligence...
...Yet the police are first and best line of defense against insurgency...
...Survey of the Alliance for Progress, p. 209...
...The urban man tends to become both depersonalized and fragmented in his human relationships...
...counter-insurgency strategists, the regular armed forces are not as effective as the police...
...2. Ibid., pp...
...David Burks of Indiana University complained that "...civil security forces have received much less attention from the United States than the military...
...Accordingly, the United States should meet reasonable requests from other hemisphere governments for trucks, jeeps, helicopters, and like equipment to provide mobility and logistical support for these forces...
...Compilation of Studies and Hearings, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 1969, p. 414...
...Aside from grants, the most important U.S...
...9) At the present time, such assistance is channeled through the Agency for International Development (AID), and often consLmes a major portion of AID funds supposedly earmarked for "social betterment" programs in Latin America...
...3. John L. Sorenson, Urban Insurgency Cases (Santa Barbara, Cal.: Defense Research Corp., 1965), p. 7. 4. U.S...
...IPA's in-house publication, IPA Review , published monthly in Washington, D.C., is the best regular source of information on the Academy...
...There is a tendency in the United States to equate the police in other American republics with political action and repression...
...and particularly from the FBI...
...III (Summer, 1968), pp...
...14 In addition to training programs in the United States, AID sends "Public Safety Advisers" to Latin America to provide "on-the-job" training to police officers...
...8 At the present time, the U.S...
...As of February 1969, some 3,000 students (drawn from hird World police agencies) had graduated from the Academy, of whom 60 percent were Latin Americans...
...Foreign Assistance Program indicated that at that time 91 persons were employed by AID as Public Safety Advisers in Latin America...
...Specifically, he suggests that "...the training program which brings military and police personnel from the other hemispheric nations to the United States and to training centers in Panama be continued and strengthened...
...40-47...
...In testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on American Republics Affairs, Prof...
...Whereas a civil police force...is with the people all the time carrying on the normal functions of control of or apprehension of ordinary or common criminals and can, therefore, move very quickly whenever an insurgent problem develops...
...for radios, and other command control equipment for proper communications among the forces...
...15 FOOTNOTES: 1. The Rockefeller Report on the Americas, The Official Report of a Presidential Mission for the Western Hemisphere, by Nelson A. Rockefeller (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969), p. 34...
...As reported in the Guatemal-n press, El Grafico (Feb...
...Four countries (Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala) with active insurgency are included...
...The 1968 annual report on the U.S...
...5. Ibid., p. 430...
...Although this document is phrased in standard public relations jargon, there is no difficulty in translating the statement into understandable terms...
...4 The concern with 'minimum force' in controlling disorders is a central feature of Burks' argument: "...I think we have to face a reality...
...Curriculum," IPA Review (Jan., 1967), p. 12...
...The Federal government is playing a similar role with respect to urban police forces in the United States...
...Montanari of the AID Information Staff provided the Guardian with a brief description of AID Public Safety programs in Latin America...
...The troops are not trained--their orientation is not such that they are really competent to handle this kind of problem...
...63-64...
...contribution to the strengthening of Latin American police forces consists of training programs and supply of police equipment (particularly communications equipment and vehicles...
...And, in most cases that I have examined, this was not too difficult to do...
...1 The turn toward urban guerrilla warfare is particularly disturbing, according to Rockefeller, because of the general urban atmosphere in Latin America: "With urbanization in the Western Hemisphere have come crowded living conditions and a loss of living space in physical and psychological terms...
...In this regard, Rockefeller is forced to acknowledge that "there have, unfortunately, been many such instances of the use of the police...
...The course of instruction at IPA is divided into three major divisions: police Management (organization, command and staff relationships, public relations...
...Fighting is likely to be in confined areas where small numbers of men may be able to stand against forces far superior in number...
...For background, see: Willard F. Barber and C. Neale Ronning, Internal Security and Military Power (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1966), pp...
...5 These views have apparently been adopted by Governor Rockefeller, who reported to the President that "there is not in the United States a full appreciation of the important role played by the police...
...The Governor warns, however, that "radical revolutionary elements in the hemisphere appear to be increasingly turning toward urban terrorism in their attempts to bring down the existing order...
...Military Operations/ Latin America," NACLA Newsletter, vol...
...12 IPA students also travel to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to study "civil-military relationships in counterinsurgency operations and police support in unconventional warfare...
...military strategy in the region from defense against extrahemispheric attack to defense against internal revolutionary struggle...
...But there comes a point--and this came in Cuba in 1957 and 1958 when Castro was in the Sierra Maestra-there can come a point when the army cannot handle this kind of situation simply because the military establishment tends to use too much force, tends to use the wrong techniques and tends, therefore, to polarize the population and gradually force the majority of those who are politically active to support the revolutionary or insurgent force...
...thus programs to upgrade police capabilities "to maintain law and order in a humane manner" (Colombia) stand for the acquisition of tear gas and other antiriot munitions, and "the implementation of a modern records system" (El Salvador) and "assistance in establishing a central identification system" (Ecuador) should read, " creation of an intelligence service...
...In 1964, the school was moved to Washington, D.C., and the name changed to International Police Academy (IPA...
...6. Rockefeller Report, pp...
...See the author's "U.S...
...of Santa Barbara (now the General Research Corp...
...lent Guatemala $200,000 to purchase 54 Ford automobiles to be used by the police in patroling the guerrilla-infested countryside...
...11, 1967...
...and Internal Security (riot control formations, chemical munitions, terrorist countermeasures...
...In addition, "The United States should respond to requests for assistance of the police and security forces of the hemisphere nations by providing them with the essential tools to do their jobs...
...and for small arms for security forces...
...The mass of people makes the insurgent difficult to identify...
...The Foreign Assistance Program, Annual Report to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1968 (Washington, D.C.: 1969), p. 51...
...wrote that, "The city is geographically complex and physically intricate as a fighting terrain...
...The reality is that when the insurgents appear, the governments will call upon the army to eliminate the insurgents...
...Published by the Iternational Police Academy, Washington, D.C...
...11 In 1969, Mr...
...In 1965 John L. Sorenson of the Defense Research Corp...
...10 Details of these programs are hard to come by, but it is known, for instance, that in 1967 the U.S...
...has also been active in helping Latin police forces establish modern storage and retrieval systems for their intelligence networks...
...7 One can safely assume that these suggestions will evoke a warm response in Washington...
...This type of subversion is more difficult to control and governments are forced to use increasingly repressive measures to deal with it...
...The counterinsurgency role of the police, however, concerns the Governor most, and he indicates that, "At the present time...police forces of many countries have not been strengthened as population and great urban growth have taken place...
...This document, dated July 18, 1969, is reproduced below as an Appendix...
Vol. 3 • January 1970 • No. 9
