U.S. military personnel carry out a very regular schedule of exercises and training deployments throughout Latin America. Here, based on official releases and press reports, is a glimpse of these activities in February and March, in alphabetical order by country.

Belize

• Leading up to the “New Horizons” humanitarian exercise scheduled to take place in the spring, construction equipment and materials are scheduled to being arriving into ports in Belize. The exercise is being overseen by U.S. Southern Command and planned by Air Forces Southern. It will last approximately 90 days and involve construction projects as well as medical service events.

Central America

• The U.S. Navy 4th Fleet’s Southern Partnership Station 2013 exercise involves port visits to Belize, Guatemala and Honduras by the USNS Swift, a high-speed catamaran. “The assigned units are focusing on locally identified needs, such as port security, noncommissioned officer professional development, operational risk management, medical readiness, outboard motor maintenance and patrol-craft operation.” In Belize, U.S. Seabees and Riverine Squadron 2 members helped with infrastructure building and training. In Guatemala, the assistance focuses on explosive ordnance disposal teams, as well as improving infrastructure at the Army’s Kaibil base.

Cuba

• More than 500 personnel from U.S. Army South, U.S. Southern Command and other military units and government agencies deployed to U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as part of an exercise called “Integrated Advance” from Februrary 7–17. The exercise focused on mass migration in the Caribbean and Army South and SOUTHCOM abilities to support the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State in a humanitarian crisis scenario.

El Salvador

• “Joint Task Force Jaguar,” the U.S. Army South Component that will soon hold a “Beyond the Horizon” humanitarian exercise in El Salvador, tested itself in March by conducting a “mass casualty exercise” in Sonsonate. It is designed to simulate the stress caused during a real crisis.

Panama

• Members of the U.S. and Honduran militaries, along with Panama’s border service and civilians, carried out a Medical Readiness Training Exercise supported by Southern Command’s Honduras-based Joint Task Force-Bravo component between Feb. 28 and March 1. The exercise sought to test their ability to conduct expeditionary medical operations. Personnel provided medical care to around 1,200 patients in two villages in the Darién region of Panama.

Paraguay

• Operation “Ñepohãno 21” took place in Paraguay from February 16-17 as part of a joint civic-humanitarian action in Cruce Liberación, San Pedro. U.S. military personnel, together with about 220 Paraguayan military and police, offered free medical care including general practice, minor surgery, pediatrics, gynecology, and ophthalmology.

Research for, and some drafting of, this post was carried out by WOLA Intern Elizabeth Glusman.

Marine Gen. John Kelly, the commander of U.S. Southern Command since November, gave his first testimonies last week in the U.S. Congress. Before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, he presented the annual “Posture Statement” for Southcom the “regional combatant command” that manages all U.S. military activity in the Western Hemisphere (excluding Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas).

Gen. Kelly took command just in time for “sequestration,” the deep cuts in federal spending, including Defense spending, that went into effect on March 1. As Latin America is clearly a lower U.S. national security priority than other regions of the world (Middle East, Pacific Rim, Europe), these cuts are hitting Southern Command disproportionately. Its Miami headquarters is trimming 26 percent from its budget, Gen. Kelly testified. These cuts’ effect, in fact, was the central theme of his testimonies last week.

• 1. Reduced drug interdiction. Due to budget cuts, Gen. Kelly foresees a sharp drop in the number of planes and boats available to look for drug-smuggling and other trafficking activity along Central America’s coasts and in the Caribbean. He raised the possibility that the U.S. Navy may resort to “stopping all naval deployments to the Caribbean and South America,” something that would leave Southcom’s naval component, the 4th Fleet, with little to do.

As a result, Gen. Kelly foresees a drop in the number of tons of cocaine that Southcom will seize in Central America and the Caribbean, from 152 last year to 90 this year. (See the chart below, which is also interesting because it contends that U.S. interdiction dropped after Ecuador refused to renew a U.S. presence at its Manta airbase in 2009.). The cuts will spell the end of “Operation Martillo” (“Hammer”), a surge of U.S. interdiction boats and planes that began last year along Central America’s coastlines. Two Navy frigates currently participating in the operation will return to port soon. The 90 tons of expected seizures this year, however, represent only a modest drop from the non-Martillo level of 117 tons measured in 2011.

• 2. Trafficking appears to be moving westward, to the Pacific. The Posture Statement offers these estimates of how trafficking activity has shifted as a result of “Martillo.”

• 21% drop in aircraft smuggling to Central America (mainly Honduras).

• 57% drop in aircraft smuggling to Hispaniola island (mainly Haiti).
• 36% drop in boats smuggling near Central America’s Caribbean coast.
• 38% drop in boats smuggling on Caribbean high seas near Central America.
• 71% increase in 2012, but 43% drop so far in 2013, in boats smuggling near Central America’s Pacific coast.
• 12% increase in 2012, and 51% increase so far in 2013, in boats smuggling on Pacific high seas near Central America.

The “balloon effect,” it would appear, continues to illustrate illicit trafficking activity in the region.

• 3. Southcom is cutting back on exercises, military-to-military contacts, and Special Forces training deployments in 2013 as a result of “sequestration.” The command, Gen. Kelly says, has been forced to “scale back deployments of Civil Affairs and Special Operations Forces teams to the region.” Southcom has chosen to scale back the annual “Panamax” canal-defense exercise, and to cancel the following exercises:

• Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarias, a simulation of a natural disaster response.
• Peacekeeping Operations Americas.
• Partnership of the Americas, a side exercise that accompanies UNITAS, an annual naval circumnavigation of South America.
• Fuerzas Comando, an annual competition between the region’s Special Forces.

The Posture Statement also says that the National Guard’s “State Partnership Program,” a series of smaller deployments, has canceled more than 90 events. In 2012, this program alone carried out 223.

Exercises that appear to have survived the cut include the “Beyond the Horizon” series of humanitarian exercises, UNITAS, the Southern Partnership Station series of naval events, and the Caribbean exercise Tradewinds.

• 4. Iran’s efforts aren’t getting traction in the region. “I share the Congress’ concerns over Iran’s attempts to increase its influence in the region,” General Kelly says. However,

“The reality on the ground is that Iran is struggling to maintain influence in the region, and that its efforts to cooperate with a small set of countries with interests that are inimical to the United States are waning. In an attempt to evade international sanctions and cultivate anti-U.S. sentiment, the Iranian regime has increased its diplomatic and economic outreach across the region with nations like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina. This outreach has only been marginally successful, however, and the region as a whole has not been receptive to Iranian efforts.”

Southcom nonetheless remains vigilant, Gen. Kelly says, even though its “limited intelligence capabilities may prevent our full awareness of all Iranian and Hezbollah activities in the region.”

• 5. China is now being explicitly cited as a competitor. Gen. Kelly notes “an unprecedented three naval deployments to Latin America since 2008, including a hospital ship visit in 2011” from China. Whether three deployments in five years should be cause for concern is unclear, but the Commander, mindful of his congressional audience, contrasts them with the current budget cuts:

“China is attempting to directly compete with U.S. military activities in the region. I believe it is important to note that sequestration will likely result in the cancellation of this year’s deployment of the USNS Comfort [a U.S. Navy hospital ship] to the region, an absence that would stand in stark contrast to China’s recent efforts.”

• 6. The document’s annex provides a glimpse of current assistance to Colombian forces fighting in that country’s armed conflict. Note these fragments from the section on Special Operations Command South (SOCSOUTH), the Southern Command’s Special Forces component.

• “SOCSOUTH elements provided assistance to the Colombian Special Operations Command, the new joint interagency task forces that are conducting operations against key FARC concentrations. SOCSOUTH also provided counternarcotics, small unit tactics, and riverine training to Colombian National Police and military forces.”

• SOCSOUTH supported Colombian War Plan ‘SWORD OF HONOR’ by helping build intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination capacity in newly established joint interagency task forces fighting the FARC.”
• “In 2012, SOCSOUTH provided subject matter expertise to enable key Colombia partner units to establish a sustainable weapons-repair capability and initiate the development of an aerial delivery capability.”
• “By partnering with academia, SOCSOUTH seeks to build critical thinking skills of key partner unit leadership, helping them to better confront complex irregular warfare challenges. In 2012, SOCSOUTH sponsored a “Counter FARC Ideological Activities” seminar in Colombia, and a “Counterterrorist Operations Planning” seminar in Peru in support of counter narco-terrorist operations.”

• About 2.2 percent of all weapons purchased in the United States end up in Mexico, according to a statistical analysis by the Igarapé Institute and the University of San Diego Transborder Institute.
• Brazil inaugurated a new shipyard and military base, which will host a plan, requiring investment of US$3.9 billion through 2017, to build and host five sumbarines (one of them nuclear) and 50 helicopters. The plan, carried out with French support, will produce the nuclear sub by 2023.
• Brazil’s Embraer aerospace company won a U.S. contract to provide Afghanistan’s air force with 20 Super Tucano light air support aircraft. The contract is valued at US$427 million but could go as high as US$950 million.
• Brazil’s defense ministry is recommending that the government buy Russian-made anti-aircraft systems: “We are interested in acquiring three batteries of medium level Pantsir-S1 missiles and two batteries of Igla missiles.”
• Connecticut-based Sikorsky Aircraft, maker of the Blackhawk helicopter, “is tripling the size of its in-country Blackhawk maintenance service team in Colombia, as the company repairs seven helicopters.” With more than 60 of the helicopters, which cost at least US$15 million apiece, Colombia has the fourth-largest Blackhawk fleet in the world.
• Of weapons that Colombian paramilitary members turned in during 2003-2006 demobilization ceremonies, the majority came from countries that have never officially sold arms to Colombia. The weapons’ top five countries of origin were the United States, Russia, Bulgaria, North Korea and China.
• Canada is amending its Automatic Firearms Country Control List (AFCCL) to allow expanded military hardware sales to Colombia. According to the Canadian foreign ministry, the intent is to sell armored personnel carriers to Colombia’s military.
• The French corporations DCNS and Thales have been carrying out a contract to modernize Colombian Navy frigates.
• In 2012, according to Colombia’s defense ministry, in 2012 the country’s armed forces and police trained “3,252 foreign students in different areas, among them 24 Mexican and four Dominican pilots.”
• With help from the U.S. Justice Department Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Guatemalan government’s National Forensic Sciences Institute can now use the “E-Trace” system, which determines whether recovered weapons were sold in the United States.
• Ecuador paid US$10 million for 107 Hummer vehicles from the United States: 100 for its army and 7 for its navy.
• Peru has ordered five Hovercraft amphibious patrol boats from the United Kingdom for about US$13 million. They will be used to “strengthen the fight against terrorism and narcotrafficking in the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro River Valleys (VRAEM),” a region where conflict continues with remnants of the Shining Path guerrillas.

• WOLA’s Venezuela blog looks at what polls say about the matchup for the country’s April 14 presidential election: “Based on Hinterlaces’ past poll we can see that voter intention for the Maduro-Capriles race had a similar pattern 55-45 [percent]. More recently Datanálisis released numbers that (when adjusted for abstention) show Maduro with a 15 point lead.”

• Hours before President Hugo Chávez died on March 5, Venezuela’s government expelled two officers from the U.S. embassy’s military attaché’s office. The U.S. government reciprocated over the weekend by ejecting two officials from the Venezuelan embassy in Washington.

• Even after a February devaluation, Venezuela’s currency, the bolívar, is trading on the black market at as much as 74 percent over the official rate.

• Defense budget cuts will reduce U.S. air and maritime drug interdiction in the Caribbean and along Central America’s coasts. Two U.S. Navy frigates will not come back to the region after they return to port in April. And, reports the Associated Press, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection has cut 1,900 hours of flight time for its P3 radar planes, a nearly 40 percent cut in flights in the fiscal year ending in September. That leaves the program with only 800 hours for the rest of the year, an amount that could be used up after several dozen flights. The program currently flies several times in an average week.”

• Colombia manually eradicated 30,000 hectares of coca bushes in 2012. That is 5,000 hectares less manual eradication than in 2011 (as opposed to fumigation, which has been steady at about 100,000 hectares), and a steep drop from a 2008 total of 96,000 hectares. The Colombian government’s budget for manual eradication has dropped by over half since 2010.

• Colombia’s security forces now estimate the current membership of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas at 7,800, the lowest figure since the mid-1990s.

• Of the 336 municipalities (counties) in which it operated in 2002, the FARC is no longer present in 85, according to a report by Colombia’s New Rainbow Foundation.

• Four or five organizations of “criminal bands,” or new paramilitary groups, totaling 4,170 members, operate in 231 of Colombia’s 1,100 municipalities (counties), according to a study by Colombia’s Ideas for Peace Foundation.

• Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, experienced 86 homicides in February, 14 less than in February 2012 and the lowest single-month total measured in 13 years.

• Almost 10 percent of the Congress that Colombia elected in 2010 - 22 members in all — have had to leave their posts, mostly for judicial reasons.

• After it draws its membership from 8,000 army soldiers and 2,000 navy marines, Mexico’s new Gendarmería Nacional, or mobile constabulary police force, will be the country’s 4th-largest security force after the Army (196,000), Navy (54,000), and Federal Police (37,000), notes security analyst Iñigo Guevara.

• There have been 47 cases of violence against Mexican journalists documented by the Inter-American Press Association since June 2012, when Mexico established A Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalists. Only seven are under investigation.

• Of 1.5 million Haitians displaced by the January 2010 earthquake, 350,000 are still in tent encampments, according to the annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.”

• Asked in a referendum whether they wished to remain a British colony, 1,514 of 1,517 Falkland Islands voters said “yes.”

• The day after the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the country’s defense minister, Adm. Diego Molero, twice called on Venezuelans to vote for Chávez’s handpicked successor, Acting President Nicolás Maduro. Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles called Adm. Molero a “disgrace” for openly backing a candidate. A New York Times analysis notes that Maduro, who never served in the armed forces, must contend with “arguably the most powerful pro-Chávez group of all: senior military figures whose sway across Venezuela was significantly bolstered by the deceased leader.”

• In December and January, the first two months of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s government, Mexico’s Army killed 161 “presumed criminals” as part of its role in fighting organized crime. Nine soldiers were killed. In an early February discussion with Defense Minister Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, legislators said “the spirit of the Army is not to be in the streets patrolling,” but that “until the problem of insecurity is resolved,” they would likely have to stay there.

• Gen. Cienfuegos may not have been President Peña Nieto’s first choice for defense secretary, alleges a February 4 New York Times investigation, which claims that the United States expressed strong misgivings about the actual next-in-line for the job, Gen. Moisés García Ochoa. Nearly two weeks later, the State Department denied that it had sought to block Gen. García.

• In one of the Peña Nieto government’s first security policy changes, 10,000 Mexican soldiers and marines will form a new mobile federal constabulary police force, a “National Gendarmerie,” before the end of the year.

• Mexico’s human rights ombudsman (CNDH) “recommended” 109 cases of alleged human rights abuse to Mexico’s Defense Secretariat (SEDENA, which comprises the Army and Air Force) during the 2006-2012 government of President Felipe Calderón. Of these, SEDENA claims to have closed 63. Only two have resulted in soldiers being convicted. SEDENA led all government agencies in 2012 with 15 new CNDH “recommendations.”

• Guatemalan prosecutors requested a copy of the Guatemalan Army’s “Table of Organization and Equipment” for 1982 outlining the institution’s lines of command in a year in which it committed massive numbers of human rights violations. Citing reasons of “sensitivity” for national security, Guatemala’s Defense Ministry refused to hand over the document — which would be important in prosecutions of past abuses — saying it would be secret for seven more years.
  Correction as of 6:00PM EDT: The document was released to prosecutors only, but will remain unavailable to the public for seven years. (Source: the Guatemalan daily ElPeriódico, with a hat tip to Cascadia Solidaria blog.)

• The abrupt transfer of judge Mariana Mota is likely to delay or derail many cases against former Uruguayan officers accused of human rights abuses during the country’s 1973-1985 military dictatorship. Shortly afterward Uruguay’s Supreme Court, which transferred Judge Mota, then struck down a legal change that sought to overturn a 1980s amnesty law.

• A column of Chilean marines caused a small uproar in late January after its members were filmed chanting that they would “kill Argentines, shoot Bolivians and slit the throats of Peruvians.”

• Two top Ecuadorian Army generals resigned their posts over an eight-day period in February, apparently due to discontent over the promotion of three colonels to the rank of general.

• Ecuadorian Defense Minister María Fernanda Espinosa said that the government of President Rafael Correa tripled the country’s defense budget between 2007 and 2012.

• “It is necessary that we have the highest participation of women [in the armed forces], above all when the commander-in-chief is a woman,” said Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. “Perhaps we’ll have a female general soon. I hope before my term is over.” An overview by Spain’s EFE news service notes that Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua Paraguay, and Uruguay all allow some degree of women’s participation in the armed forces, though usually not combat. Colombia’s army just graduated the first five female officers to have command over male soldiers.

• Defense officials from Peru’s last government are under a cloud of corruption suspicions surrounding a contract with an Israeli company hired to provide military training.

• Retired Gen. Hugo Pow Sang was named to head Peru’s military justice system, although he currently faces two civilian judicial proceedings for alleged corruption.

• A December 2012 poll by M&R Consultores found 85.67 percent of Nicaraguans “trusting” the country’s army, with 91.4 percent supporting the Nicaraguan Army playing a role in “the fight against international narcotrafficking” and “organized crime.”

• When Nicaraguan Education Minister José Antonio Alvarado was moved to head the Defense Ministry, asks El Nuevo Diario columnist León Núñez, was it a promotion or a demotion? “Political analysts who view it as a demotion say that in the Defense Ministry there is nothing to do, except read newspapers, sleep, drink coffee, put up with giving the occasional obligatory talk, and be on hand for occasional events.”

(Cross-posted from WOLA)

Since our January 26 Colombia peace process update, negotiators from the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group have held two rounds of talks in Havana. Round five lasted from January 31 to February 10. Round six ran from February 18 to March 1.

The negotiators continue to discuss the first agenda item: land and rural development. In a joint communiqué on March 1, the two sides indicated substantial progress: “We have advanced in the construction of an accord on the following issues: land access and use; unproductive lands; formalization of property; agricultural frontier; and protection of [smallholder] reserve zones.” The daily El Espectador reported, “The news, to the extent known, is good: there is now a basic document, written jointly by the two negotiating teams, with about five pages on which accords have been reached.”

“With the FARC we have passed from convergences to accords about a profound process of rural development,” said the government’s chief negotiator, former Vice President Humberto de la Calle, in a largely upbeat statement. However, he added, “We know we are in a key moment of the dialogues where results are required, that is, accords on the agrarian issue that will allow us to continue with the discussion of the other points of the agreed agenda.” Five other points on this agenda remain, most of them less complicated than the land issue: political participation, ending the conflict, drug policy, victims’ rights, and implementation logistics.

This moment followed a period of tension in the peace talks, sparked by the FARC’s January 25 capture of two Colombian policemen, Víctor Alfonso González and Cristian Camilo Yate, in the southwestern department (province) of Valle del Cauca. On January 29, the guerrillas issued a statement affirming their claim to have abandoned kidnapping for ransom, but reiterating their intention to continue holding security-force members whom they capture as “prisoners of war.”

The policemen’s capture sent the talks into their most serious crisis to date. “Things must be called by their names,” lead government negotiator De la Calle said on January 30. “A kidnapping is a kidnapping, it doesn’t matter whom the victim is.” Added President Juan Manuel Santos, “If the FARC believe that through kidnappings, which they promised that they wouldn’t carry out, they’re going to try to pressure the government to agree to what they aspire to, a cease-fire within the dialogue process, then they’re wrong! To the contrary!”

For reasons that remain unclear — though messages from government negotiators in Havana, especially Gen. Oscar Naranjo, a former National Police chief, likely played a role — the FARC announced on February 2 that they would release the two policemen, plus a soldier whom they had also captured. By February 15, all three had been delivered to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the non-governmental group Colombians for Peace.

Still, the policemen’s captivity, which brought back memories of the FARC’s past practices of kidnapping thousands of civilians for ransom, took a heavy toll on public opinion. So did an uptick in FARC attacks following the guerrillas’ two-month unilateral cease-fire, which ended on January 20th. Headline-making hostilities included the February 5 detonation of two car bombs in Caloto, Cauca, which killed two people and wounded several more.

President Santos insisted on February 11 that although “there has been more noise in the media,” the frequency of FARC attacks had not increased. But a February 18 Datexco poll showed 67.34% of Colombians surveyed believing that the FARC peace process would not be successful. On February 25, the bimonthly Gallup poll showed the percentage of Colombians believing that the talks will end the conflict with the FARC falling to 36, from 43 in December. The percentage of Colombian respondents saying they supported the FARC talks fell to 62, from 71 in December. President Santos’s favorability rating, meanwhile, fell to 44 percent, from 53 percent in December. Gallup respondents gave ex-President Álvaro Uribe, who has been actively opposing the talks, a 65 percent favorability rating.

Tensions rose further with President Santos’s February 20th appearance in San Vicente del Caguán, Caquetá, part of the zone that hosted peace talks which failed eleven years earlier that same day. The President was there to distribute to farmers lands recovered from the FARC. Maximum FARC leader Timoleón Jiménez issued a statement complaining that President Santos’s speech in San Vicente made no mention of the current peace process. “While it’s true that the dialogues have made some important advances toward accords, official attitudes… threaten to mire it in a swamp,” read the statement. “Let’s get it out of there now, Santos. This narrow and calculated conception of the process threatens to drown it. Let’s save it.”

“[T]he people should understand that we are conversing in the midst of conflict, that this is difficult, often contradictory, but that it is the route that we deliberately chose,” said President Santos on February 23, controversially adding, “At this moment I would have no problem getting up from the table and saying that this is over. But I’m going to make every possible effort so that this doesn’t happen, because just imagine Colombia without that conflict.” On February 26th, FARC negotiators responded with a statement calling on the government not to “kick aside” (patear) the negotiating table.

This all seemed to contradict the mood at the table in Havana, where negotiators appear to be making steady progress toward an accord. In a February 3 statement condemning what it characterized as “the ultra-right wing’s campaign against the Havana peace process,” FARC negotiators insisted, “The conversations at the table are proceeding normally, nobody has gotten up or formally threatened to leave.” The talks are moving forward “at the speed of a bullet train,” FARC negotiator Rodrigo Granda added on February 10. “We’ve put together at least two or more pages of an agreement, and this is an advance that had not been achieved in previous processes,” lead FARC negotiator Iván Márquez told Semana magazine columnist María Jimena Duzán on February 24. (As mentioned above, El Espectador cited a figure of five pages a few days later.)

At the March 1 conclusion of the sixth round of talks, the mood was slightly better. On March 3-4, with government permission, a group of Colombian legislators, including Senate President Roy Barreras and members of both houses’ Peace Committees, visited Havana, where they met with both sides’ negotiators. “After hearing Colombians’ concerns throughout the country, we decided it was time to transmit these doubts and concerns about the timeframe of the process to the negotiators on both sides of the table,” said Barreras. FARC negotiator Rodrigo Granda told reporters that following a successful peace process, FARC leaders would not run for office, at least not under the current “electoral regime,” which in his view is stacked against leftist candidates.

The March 5 death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez then added a measure of uncertainty to the process. Venezuela, along with Chile, is officially designated an “accompanying country” of the peace process, and President Chávez had played an important behind-the-scenes role in convincing the FARC to take part. According to Semana journalist María Jimena Duzán, who spent a week in Havana in February, “Who really convinced the FARC to allow Jaramillo [FARC Eastern Bloc chief Mauricio Jaramillo, the guerrillas’ chief negotiator during the dialogues’ agenda-building phase] to board that helicopter [to Havana] was President Chávez himself. The FARC delegates with whom I spoke in Havana confirmed that to me.”

“These were his words before beginning his last fatal trip to Havana.’I believe that with the guarantees that the Colombian government offers and that Colombian society offers … the FARC can enter into a political process without arms. … I hope that all the comandantes at the FARC’s various levels, and its combatants and fronts, join in this process, and I hope that they arrive at the best possible accord, and I hope that we can see the day in which peace is signed in Colombia. On that day there will be celebration in Venezuela and in the whole continent.’”

In an analysis, Juanita Leon of the Colombian politics website La Silla Vacía outlined three possible scenarios for Venezuela’s role post-Chávez:

1. Interim President Nicolás Maduro is reelected easily, and continues Venezuela’s current facilitating role.
2. Divisions appear in the pro-Chávez governing bloc, leading Maduro to pressure for the FARC to speed the negotiation.
3. (The nightmare scenario:) The pro-Chávez bloc sees itself as seriously threatened, and a faction of it seeks the FARC’s help to strengthen its resistance.

The seventh round of talks is to begin on Monday, March 11 in Havana.

Eleven countries have declared days of mourning for deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Iran, Nicaragua, Peru, and Uruguay

Venezuela suffered 16,072 homicides in 2012, according to numbers recognized by then-Vice President Nicolás Maduro. This is 1,980 more than the 2011 figure; the opposition calculates a homicide rate of 56 per 100,000 people. Observatorio Venezolana de Violencia, an NGO, estimated 21,600 homicides last year, for a rate of 73 per 100,000.

Brazilian aerospace company Embraer, together with U.S. joint-venture partner Sierra Nevada Corporation, has been awarded a $427 million U.S. Air Force contract to provide Super Tucano light air support aircraft, maintenance and training to the Afghan air force.

Through a program that will spend US$3.9 billion through 2017, Brazil and France are to produce “five submarines, one of them nuclear-propelled; 50 helicopters; a military shipyard; and a naval base, all with French technology,” EFE reports.

On March 3, it took 1,500 police and 200 Navy sharpshooters 25 minutes to take over the Complexo do Caju favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, part of the state government’s ongoing favela “pacification program.”

In Brazil there has been a land conflict-related murder on average every 12 days since the beginning of 2007. 32 rural activists were killed in 2012, a 10 percent increase over 2011. While that number is not low, attempted murders are even more common, and death threats occur on average almost every day, with 347 in 2011 alone.

Newly released documents reveal that Brazil’s military regime gave Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet US$115 million in aid in the first years after the 1973 coup that brought him to power.

After operating for a total of 50,000 hours, the Colombian Air Force’s U.S.-donated Helicopter Academy flight simulator has trained more than 4,000 pilots. Of those trained, 157 are from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Panama.

While the number of murders in Medellín, Colombia dropped 24% in 2012, the number of intra-city displacements and threats has dramatically increased. 9,941 people in 2012 had to flee their homes, an increase of 1,507 from 2011, according to the municipal ombudsman.

According to the Colombian NGO Somos Defensores, violence against the country’s human rights defenders increased by 66% from 2011 to 2012. In 2012 alone, 357 human rights defenders working in Colombia were attacked or received death threats from armed criminal groups. Of those, 69 were killed.

In the first three months of Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration, 100 police from the three levels of government and the military have been murdered. In February alone, Mexico experienced 944 executions related to organized crime, or 34 per day, estimates the daily newpaper Milenio. When compared with January of this year, February shows an increase of 3 homicides every 24 hours.

The Mexican government estimated that related violence has left about 70,000 people dead since ex-President Calderón went on the offensive against organized crime groups.

The most recent estimate by the Mexican government puts the number of missing/disappeared persons since the beginning of ex-President Felipe Calderón’s administration (December 2006) at 26,122. That includes more than 20,000 ongoing official investigations, but 5,206 have yet to be verified.

11,000 migrants were kidnapped and held for ransom in Mexico in 2012, according to the national human rights ombudsman.

According to the International Press Institute and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, 55 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2006 for reasons related to their profession.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s plan to launch a new National Gendarmerie police force entails hiring 10,000 member officers by the end of the year. They are reportedly to come from the Army and Navy.

56.5 percent of 1,200 Salvadorans surveyed by LPG Datos said that El Salvador’s citizen security situation was “bad” or “very bad.” This is down from 64 percent in 2011. 83.7 percent said the same about the cost of living.

Thanks to WOLA Intern Elizabeth Glusman for contributing research assistance to this post.

WOLA Intern Elizabeth Glusman attended the February 28 hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee entitled "Overview of U.S. Interests in the Western Hemisphere: Opportunities and Challenges." This was the first hearing to be led by a new subcommittee chairman, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Arizona). Here are her notes.

House Committee on Foreign Relations: Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere

Hearing Minutes

February 28, 2013

Present:

Committee Members: Rep. Salmon (R. Arizona. Headed Hearing) Rep. Sires (D. New Jersey) Rep. Meeks (D. New York) Rep. Faleomavaega (D. American Samoa) Rep. Deutch (D. Florida) Rep. Duncan (R. South Carolina) Rep. DeSantis (R. Florida) Rep. Radel (R. Florida) Witnesses: The Honorable Roberta S. Jacobson Assistant Secretary Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs U.S. Department of State [full text of opening statement] The Honorable Mark Feierstein Assistant Administrator Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean U.S. Agency for International Development [full text of opening statement]

I. Opening Statements

Salmon –

· Sees neighbors as critical to US security and economy

· US has job to combat criminal and terrorist organizations, promote democratic values and free enterprise

· Alluded to the successes of the Merida Initiative, the US’s interests in promoting security

· Importance of US-Mexican trade relations

· Thinks US should re-assert its role in trade and investment in the region, especially in places like Brazil

· Placed an interesting emphasis on the importance of tourism throughout the region and the damaging effects of terrorism and narco-trafficking on the tourism industry

· US needs a sound policy with regards to Cuba

· US needs to watch out for Venezuela and the possible ties it is developing with Iran and Hezbollah

o We should also try to strengthen democratic institutions in Venezuela

o Promote free and fair elections

Sires –

· Latin America deserves more attention and focus in US Foreign Policy, current policy is too narrow

· Our reactive responses are insufficient, and the current patchwork of initiatives is also insufficient

· Concerned about Iran’s influence in the region (mentioned the recent development of the joint truth commission in Argentina regarding bombing against Israeli embassy)

· We should pressure Cuba’s authoritarian regime

· Must be ready in case Chavez dies in order to secure a democratic and peaceful transition of power

· We should continue to support Colombia

· Peña Nieto – how much will he work to combat drugs? Will he build off of the Merida initiative?

Radel –

· Very eager

· Previous journalist who traveled throughout Latin America

· Sees Colombia as an example of our US foreign aid has played a huge positive role

Meeks –

· Cuba, Venezuela and Chavez

· Concerned about Iran, drugs, laundry list of problems

· Concerned mostly about the plight of afro descendants throughout the region

· US objectives are strongly linked to afro descendants and indigenous communities

· Impact of narco-trafficking on these groups

· Entered OAS report into the official record on the situation of Afro Americans

Faleomavaega –

· Also primarily concerned with the indigenous community and the lack of autonomy that they have due to colonial and modern state practices

Roberta Jacobson –

· Under Obama administration, State has focused on the 4 goals presented at the summit of the Americas

· Free trade = prosperity and economic expansion in the region

· US has helped with contributing to security in Colombia

· Mexico is a similar situation

· Partnering important in both Colombia and Mexico

Feierstein –

· Purpose of development aid is so that eventually the countries can graduate out of foreign assistance programs

· We should strengthen the economic capacities of countries

· The nature of development work automatically presents challenges – violence and criminality impede progress

· Colombians - Training with Latin American and Central American Police has been a big advancement for regional security and development efforts

· In Peru, lots of progress on helping coca farmers transition to legal products

· Lots of talk about Alan Gross in Cuba

II. Question and Answer

Sires

· Q: about corruption in Latin American governments and private sector investment.

· A from Jacobson: State Dep. Is working with governments to reduce corruption.

Radel

· Q: Colombia as a great example for US in the region in combatting drug trafficking and terrorism. Sees a reduction in kidnapping in the last 12 years by 90%, less poverty, lots of improvements. What lessons can we take from Colombia to apply to other countries in Latin America, like Mexico?

· A from Jacobson: have to remember that the two countries are structurally different but there are still many similarities. Looking to training that has occurred for police and helicopter pilots that they have done without our encouragement. Colombia is having more influence on Central America. They are better at training other domestic forces than we are sometimes. Our cooperation with Colombia is helping the region.

· A from F: Colombia is also a model for USAID. Bilateral cooperation from USAID and military cooperation.

Meeks:

· Q: About Plan Colombia and its shift to social change. Where are we with that? Mostly concerned about the human rights components of afro-indigenous programs

Duncan:

· Q: who is overseeing the Iran monitoring program in the Western hemisphere at the State department?

· A from Jacobson: She is overseeing it. In response to Iranian activities in the region, the US is working with other partners in the hemisphere. They help other countries to protect and monitor themselves and Iran’s activities within their own countries.

· Q: ICE just release a huge number of illegal aliens, aren’t Central American governments upset about that?

· A from Jacobson: those illegal aliens were not criminal detainees to her knowledge, and there has been no response from those countries as of yet. She doubts that they will have a strong reaction though.

Faleomavaega

· Just really only cares about indigenous populations and the development of indigenous rights, education, poverty, and economy.

DeSantis

· Q: Concerned about Florida and Cuba. What will happen with Cuba over the next 5 years?

· A from Jacobson: she hopes that there will be changes in political rights just as much as in economic rights. There has been increased contact with Americans (church and education groups, etc…) Hopes that will help in promoting ideals for democracy and human rights.

Deutch

· Q: concerned with Cuba and Allen Gross. Also concerned with deforestation in the Amazon. What can the US do to protect environmental sustainability?

Salmon

· Wanted more information

· Q: asked state to submit budget priorities and embassy security priorities

· A from Jacobson: we are focusing a lot now post Benghazi on embassy security. We have to recognize that the western hemisphere doesn’t face the same kinds of threats as the Middle East does. We are reviewing all embassies with all embassy staff.

Sires

· Q: when will the western hemisphere report on 2012 on Iran come out. Iran is training Hezbollah in the Middle East

· A: the report will come out in June; they want to make sure all of the credible information is reviewed before it goes out. A good section of the report will be classified.

Radel

· Q: Venezuela and Chavez in failing health. Post-Chavez Venezuela is there a role that the US can, should, or could play in ensuring free and fair elections?

· A: yes, with a small amount of foreign assistance they believe they can make an impact on elections. There are programs that support civil society, election programs, and human rights group programs

Meeks

• Q: will CBSI have a social impact? Also asked about the FARC Colombian peace process
• A from Jacobson: a lot of work to be done on CBSI. State is currently implementing programs through CBSI. There has been an increase in information sharing and cooperation. Donor coordination has had success too and the UK and Canada have meant more in terms of contributions.

Faleomavaega

• Made a comment on the general number of people who have been killed by Cartels in Mexico due to guns and violence.

Salmon Closing remarks

• Believes that crop transitions for current coca farmers are good.
• Sees Colombia as an enormous success story.
• Thinks Brazil is doing the right thing in terms of economic development and growth.
• The US should work to eradicate the drug cartels in Mexico.
• Wonders what the US can do to keep Mexicans in their own country. Are they afraid to stay there? How can we work on that?

III. What Was Left Out

• There was no mention, apart from Colombia’s role as a training country, of bi-lateral or regional military involvement or strategy.
• Other than Salmon’s closing remarks, nothing was said about the border or border security.
• Nothing was said about immigration reform.
• There was nothing said about Central American immigrants, it was as if the committee members present believed that everyone in this country who is a Hispanic immigrant has come from either Mexico out of fear of the drug cartels, or from Cuba, out of fear of being repressed.
• Although violence caused by narco-trafficking and organized criminal activity was mentioned, nothing was said about US domestic gun reform and the potential impact that could have on violence in Central America.
• While crop-transitions were mentioned for current farmers of coca, nothing was mentioned about the UN’s recent decriminalization of traditional uses of the coca leaf in Bolivia.

• “In the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War, the U.S. has militarized the battle against the traffickers, spending more than $20 billion in the past decade,” reports the Associated Press. “At any given moment, 4,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Latin America and as many as four U.S. Navy ships are plying the Caribbean and Pacific coastlines of Central America. U.S. pilots clocked more than 46,400 hours in 2011 flying anti-drug missions.”

• The Colombian government reported that landmines and unexploded munitions killed 25 civilians and injured 94 more between January and June 2012.

• As of August 2012, the Human Rights Unit of Colombia’s attorney general’s office had obtained convictions for less than 10% of 1,727 cases of extrajudicial killings, most committed between 2004 and 2008, involving more than 3,000 victims.

• Although murders of trade unionists are down in Colombia from a decade ago, threats against unionists continue to be widespread, with 539 cases in 2011 and 255 between January and September 15, 2012.

• Bogotá, Colombia’s homicide rate hit its lowest point in 30 years, with 16.92 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2012.

• The number of homicides in Mexico in 2012 fell to “somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000,” down from a record high of 27,000 in 2011, according to a new report by the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.

• At the same time, the number of drug-related homicides in Mexico has remained essentially the same, at more than 12,000 people according to the latest Mexican media tallies, which is roughly the same number as 2010 and 2011.

• In 2012, 591 inmates died and 1,132 were injured in violent incidents in Venezuelan prisons.

• Every year since 2010, Venezuela has had at least one prison tragedy in which 50 or more people have been killed or seriously injured. The most recent riot left over 60 people dead and 120 injured from the Uribana prison.

• Two Brazilian companies share a 60 percent stake in Harpia, a company that will develop drones in Brazil. The third company, with 40 percent ownership, is Israel’s Elbit Systems, which has sold drones to Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and perhaps other Latin American countries.

• “Some economists think the annual inflation rate could rise as high as 30% this year” in Argentina, the BBC reports.

• An 84-year-old priest in Caldas became the third Catholic priest murdered in a three-week period in Colombia.

• U.S. Defense Department “contracts have more than doubled since 2010 in Guatemala, where there is a ban on most State Department-channeled military aid to the army. However, the ban does not apply to Defense Department assistance,” reports the Fellowship of Reconciliation. “The contracts for nearly $14 million in 2012 amount to more than seven times what it was in 2009.”

• Before Venezuela’s February 8 currency devaluation, a Big Mac at McDonalds cost US$16.27 at the official exchange rate.

• Since 1999, Colombia’s child-welfare agency has assisted 5,092 former guerrilla and paramilitary fighters under the age of 18.

• Of 109 alleged human rights abuse cases for which the Mexican government’s ombudsman has recommended action, Mexico’s Defense Secretariat (Ministry) has closed 63 cases – but arrived at only two convictions.

• “For Brazil to keep up with [electricity] demand, two giant dams, just like this one, must go up every year,” said the director of a project to build the 14th-largest dam in the world on an Amazon River tributary.

• Gallup asked Central Americans whether street crime or narcotrafficking should be their government’s priority. A majority said “street crime” in El Salvador (by a 79%-18% margin), Guatemala (64-30), Honduras (57-40), and Panama (43-42). A majority said “narcotrafficking” in Costa Rica (51-41) and Nicaragua (55-35).

• The Western Hemisphere country with the most military personnel per capita is, surprisingly, Uruguay with 744 soldiers, sailors or airmen per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Colombia (633 per 100,000), the United States (505) and Venezuela (416). Brazil (157), Honduras (147) and Guatemala (110) are at the bottom of the list of nations with militaries in the region.

Written with research assistance from WOLA Intern Elizabeth Glusman.