OPEN FORUM: Creeping Militarization in the Americas
Huagaard, Lisa & Olson, Joy & Isacson, Adam
THE U.S. MILITARY RELATIONSHIP WITH Latin America is evolving rapidly, as the "war on terror" replaces the cold war and the "war on drugs" as the guiding mission for Washington's assistance...
...The stated goal of Enduring Friendship is to create an operational force to respond to transnational threats on the high seas, such as drug and weapons trafficking, terrorism, uncontrolled migration, fish poaching and other threats to marine life, hazards to navigation and humanitarian emergencies...
...military aid nearly equals economic aid to Latin America and the Caribbean...
...disturbing...
...The United States continues to encourage military practices, programs and doctrine that promote a confusion of civilian and military roles, especially the creation of new military missions within countries' own borders...
...Colombia was by far the world's largest training grant recipient in 2003...
...MILITARY RELATIONSHIP WITH Latin America is evolving rapidly, as the "war on terror" replaces the cold war and the "war on drugs" as the guiding mission for Washington's assistance programs in the region...
...ROLE IN LATIN AMERICA Compared with civilian government agencies, Southcom has a growing and disproportionate 4NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2004 OPEN FORUM role in U.S.-Latin American relations...
...This continues a trend that accelerated in 2000 with the Clinton administration's introduction of Plan Colombia, an overwhelmingly military aid package that has been renewed each year as a regional Andean Counterdrug Initiative...
...they include a ban on military assistance to gross violators of human rights or to countries that have experienced military coups...
...Panama does not even have a military, having abolished its army-the force behind decades of dictatorships, including that of Manuel Noriega-with a 1994 constitutional amendment...
...Between August 2002 and July 2004, Southcom Commander Gen...
...In 1997, by comparison, economic aid was more than double military aid to the region...
...In her 2003 book The Mission, Dana Priest of the Washington Post claims that Southcom has more people working on Latin America-about 1,100than most key civilian federal agencies combined, including the Departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce and Treasury, as well as the office of the Secretary of Defense...
...military-which has the resources, manpower and political clout to cover even relatively neglected zones-is becoming the leading interpreter of affairs in the region...
...This is the most egregious example of U.S...
...Most of these trainees were funded by counternarcotics aid programs, which since 2002 can legally be used to support counterinsurgency missions in Colombia...
...military training for Latin America is paid for by the DOD, (as opposed to the Department of State-managed foreign aid budget), through counternarcotics accounts and Special Forces "engagement" programs that operate with few limits and little opportunity for public scrutiny...
...MILITARY TRAINING INCREASINGLY FUNDED THROUGH DEFENSE DEPARTMENT Two-thirds of U.S...
...Resources and responsibilities are shifting from the State Department to the Pentagon...
...military aid 6 with the open-ended mission of maintaining a military presence in stateless areas as vast and diverse as the Amazon basin, Central America's Mosquitia or gang-ridden city slums...
...Traditional civilian-military roles are being blurred not only overseas, through programs for Latin American militaries, but here at home, in the formation of foreign policy...
...This idea, often referred to as a "Latin American Navy," was seen as a way to fill the security and drug interdiction gap created when U.S...
...Policymakers must recall the fundamental differences between a police force--a body designed to protect a population through minimal use of force-and the military, which aims to defeat an enemy through use of force...
...medical assistance, school building, well digging...
...Light infantry tactics are appropriate military skills, not police skills, and the provision of such training encourages the militarization of police forces...
...U.S.INVOLVEMENT IN COLOMBIA INTENSIFIED IN QUANTITY AND SCOPE The most ambitious U.S...
...government's annual Foreign Military Training Report, the U.S...
...The other top recipients of training in 2003 were Bolivia (2,045 trainees), Panama (914), Peru (680) and Ecuador (662...
...Though U.S...
...Civic Action programs generally involve entering a community to provide social services (i.e...
...aid to Colombia...
...It goes to the heart of democracy, which includes a clear division between the civilian and military spheres...
...These conditions, while limited in scope and impact, are important...
...As the Colombian military has little experience with such long-term, large-scale operations, U.S...
...This again raises issues about the appropriate roles and divisions of responsibilities between military, police and governmental service agencies...
...A NEW "EFFECTIVE SOVEREIGNTY" DOCTRINE EMERGES The blurring of police and military roles in the region is being strongly encouraged by a doctrine the Bush Administration developed to govern its counter-terror effort in the hemisphere...
...ENDURING FRIENDSHIP: U.S...
...Traditionally, foreign military training has been funded and administered by the State Department because of the serious foreign policy implications of such assistance...
...INCREASE IN U.S.-TRAINED LATIN AMERICAN TROOPS According to the U.S...
...James Hill made 78 trips to Latin America, a record unlikely matched by any State Department official...
...government sees current multilateral exercises within the region, such as the "Panamax" canal defense exercise with Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama and Peru, as a precursor to Enduring Friendship, establishing the kind of coordination needed to make this effort function...
...As Latin America has become a lower priority for executive-branch foreign policymakers, the U.S...
...policymakers uneasy, but which are far from threats requiring a military response...
...In late 5 o a 0 a3 CD CDNACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS OPEN FORUM 2003 the U.S...
...The emphasis so far appears to be on improving military mobility and coverage in these areas...
...The increasing concentration of U.S...
...Too often in Latin America, when armies have focused on an internal enemy, the definition of enemies has included political opponents of the regime in power, even those working within the political system such as activists, independent journalists, labor organizers or opposition politicalparty leaders...
...Nearly all of the increase was the result of a doubling of trainees from Colombia...
...a greater emphasis on nonmilitary priorities is urgently needed...
...The United States is slated to provide $921 million in economic aid and at least $859 million in military aid...
...Special Forces do not have a policing mission or use policing tactics, and their role should not be replicated by Latin American police forces...
...During the cold war, the ratio was even higher...
...This trend raises an increasingly urgent question: What happened to the line between civilian and military roles...
...counterterror effort in the region is in wartorn Colombia, where in fact it more closely resembles a large-scale return to 20th-century-style counterinsurgency...
...Instead of encouraging military assumption of policing roles, the United States should support police reform and the strengthening of civilian institutions so that they are better able to confront the internal security challenges at hand...
...Dubbed "Effective Sovereignty," this policy contends that the United States' national security is threatened by Latin American governments' failure to exercise control over the vast "ungoverned spaces" within their borders...
...This is not an academic question...
...Southcom and Department of Defense (DOD) personnel are now publicly describing "radical populism" and gangs as disturbing trends, and their focus on these issues suggests they see a role for themselves, or their uniformed colleagues in the hemisphere, in countering them...
...SPECIAL FORCES TRAIN CIVILIAN POLICE IN LIGHT INFANTRY TACTICS The U.S...
...These appropriations bills are also subject to a much stronger version of the Leahy Amendment, which prohibits assistance to military units known to violate human rights with impunity...
...Counternarcotics programs region-wide and counterinsurgency programs in Colombianearly all of them in existence before 9/11-continue to receive the most support, while funding for decades-old military aid programs, such as Foreign Military Financing grants and the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, continued a steady upward trend for the majority of countries...
...Yet social problems should not be defined as emerging military threats...
...military training--1,650 police and military were trained in civic action techniques...
...The U.S...
...assistance on military rather than development and humanitarian aid reinforces the image of the United States as preoccupied primarily with its own security rather than being sufficiently invested in the welfare of the region's population...
...Using the wrong tool for the job, as happens when military personnel are sent into cities to fight common criminals, carries strong risks for human and civil rights...
...military trained 1,855 Colombian National Police and 100 Panamanian National Police in light infantry tactics in 2003...
...Last year Bolivia's police were the number two Latin American recipients (after Colombia) of U.S...
...effort to help Colombia fight guerrilla groups took a quantum leap with the launch of "Plan Patriota" (Patriot Plan), an ambitious military offensive to re-take territory from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest guerrilla force...
...The overwhelming majority of military training and aid is directed to longstanding programs, rather than specific new or expanded programs to enhance homeland security or to combat the activities in Latin America of al Qaeda and similar international terrorist groups with global reach...
...coastline after 9/11...
...LITTLE OF POST-9/11 INCREASED MILITARY ASSISTANCE DIRECTED TO AL QAEDA-RELATED THREATS Military aid and training programs have not changed substantially since 9/11, even though in some cases they have been repackaged as counterterrorism efforts...
...In fact, training of Latin American police goes well beyondNOVEMBER DECEMBER 2004 OPEN FORUM light infantry skills...
...Utilizing the armed forces in police roles can lead to excessive use of force...
...naval assets were redeployed from the region to defend the U.S...
...Indeed, the major economic and humanitarian aid programs, Development Assistance and Child Survival and Health, are reduced by 10% and 12%, respectively, from their FY2004 levels in the Bush administration's 2005 plan...
...This training is not being conducted by U.S...
...personnel embarked on their first major non-drug initiative, a plan to help Colombia's army protect an oil pipeline and re-take territory in the conflictive department of Arauca, near the Venezuelan border...
...doing so risks justifying a military response...
...As the Pentagon and Southcom (United States Southern Command, responsible for all U.S...
...Special Operations Command "plans, directs, and executes special operations in the conduct of the war on terrorism in order to disrupt, defeat, and destroy terrorist networks that threaten the United States, its citizens and interests worldwide...
...Blurring this distinction-for instance, by having the military carry out crime fighting or other roles that civilians can fill-risks politicizing the armed forces, which in turn leads the military to use (or threaten to use) its monopoly of arms whenever it disagrees with the civilian consensus...
...MILITARY AID NEARLY EQUALS ECONOMIC AID TO REGION In the FY2005 budget, U.S...
...In addition, the annual foreign aid appropriations bills, which fund State Department activities, contain specific conditions on countries with human rights problems, including Guatemala, Cuba and Colombia in the Western Hemisphere...
...According to the Special Forces Web site, the U.S...
...The U.S...
...The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 stipulates that the State Department, not the Pentagon, sets policy and makes decisions governing military assistance programs, which are subject to a number of human rights and democracy conditions...
...SOUTHCOM INCREASINGLY DEFINES U.S...
...attention is fixed on other parts of the world, the scope of military aid is steadily increasing in our own hemisphere...
...advice and training, have been operating in the southern Colombian departments of Caqueta, Meta and Guaviare, a longtime FARC stronghold...
...military activities south of Mexico and in the Caribbean) increasingly set the priorities for U.S.-Latin American relations, human rights and broader foreign policy considerations are likely to be sidelined...
...military trained 22,855 Latin Americans in FY2003, a striking increase of 52% over 2002...
...In early 2003, U.S...
...Since January 2004, between 15,000 and 20,000 Colombian military personnel, many in mobile units recently created with U.S...
...As policymakers currently conceive it, the term appears to be directed at political leaders and social movements that espouse economic and social policies that might make some U.S...
...Most of these restrictions do not apply to training funded directly through DOD...
...This effort began in 2002-2003 with an expansion of what had previously been a counterdrug mission for U.S...
...Our security, however, is inseparably tied to democracy and prosperity in the Western Hemisphere...
...military and private contractor personnel are playing a key role in Plan Patriota, providing intelligence to troops in the field, helping to maintain equipment, and offering planning and logistical support-for instance, helping the advancing Colombian troops maintain fuel and supply lines...
...Special Forces...
...This proposal, which has not been viewed favorably by Latin American militaries, should generate considerable debate, as it potentially would place civilian policing activities, such as those governing fishing and migration, under military jurisdiction...
...The appropriate solution for lawless, ungoverned territory must be an extension of civilian government services, including courts, police, health clinics, schools, roadbuilding and agricultural services, rather than a strengthened military...
...military training blurring the line between civilian and military roles...
...military police, but by U.S...
...The identification of "radical populism" as a threat is particularly Colombian sol- dier during the country's Independence day celebration...
...With declines in development aid in the Bush Administration's FY2005 aid request for the region, there is no parallel effort to help civilian institutions enter "ungoverned spaces" alongside, or instead of, the soldiers...
...ADVOCATES FORMATION OF LATIN AMERICAN NAVY Bush administration defense officials have been developing a proposal, "Enduring Friendship," to create a multinational operational maritime force of the Americas, a flotilla of vessels led by the United States...
...Declaring "ungoverned spaces" themselves to be threats guarantees a steady flow of U.S...
Vol. 38 • November 2004 • No. 3
