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.

The following is a round-up of some of the top news highlights from around the region since Monday.

Brazil

Blog del Narco

Uruguay Marijuana Bill

Rios Montt trial

Mexico's 2014 security budget

Presidents of Peru and Mexico to China

Armed groups and illegal gold mining in Colombia

Colombia's "emerald czar" dies

El Salvador

The following is a round-up of some of the top news highlights from around the region over the past week.

Colombia

Peru

Mexico and the border

Russia in Nicaragua

Honduras

Venezuela

Chile

Last week Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) William R. Brownfield traveled to Costa Rica and Honduras to discuss the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) and collaborative counternarcotics and security strategies. While there he announced funding for upcoming initiatives in both countries.

Honduras

In Honduras, Assistant Secretary Brownfield met with Vice President María Antonieta Guillen de Bográn, Foreign Minister Arturo Corrales, Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla, and Defense Minister Marlon Pascua.

Brownfield announced the U.S. would be providing $16.3 million to combat crime in the country: $6 million to create a special police unit to combat large-scale crimes (to be called the Major Crimes Task Force), and another $10.3 million to equip and train police and prosecutors.

Recently, two troubling Associated Press reports have linked U.S. funding to Honduran police units carrying out "death-squad style" killings. In August the United States froze about $30 million in aid to Honduras over concerns that its police director, Juan Carlos 'El Tigre' Bonilla, had been involved in extrajudicial killings and disappearances. The United States has since released some of the money under strict conditions, saying it only would go to specially vetted units not under Bonilla's control, in accordance with the Leahy Law.

The AP investigation revealed that under Honduran law, all police units are in fact, under Bonilla's control. Some of the aid announced by Brownfield "will go to the Gang Resistance Education and Training program under the director of community policing, who also told the AP that he reports directly to Bonilla," according to the AP.

In an interview with the AFP, Brownfield insisted that the U.S. does not have relations with Bonilla and would not offer him "neither a dollar nor a cent." He recognized that as director Bonilla is responsable for all units, but that not all "15,000 or 16,000 members of the Honduran National Police report directly to the director." To give "two degrees of separation" between U.S. funding and individuals and units accused of human rights abuses, Brownfield said the U.S. would also give no support to the 20 officials directly below Bonilla.

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson, has also refuted the claims, saying the U.S. is monitoring individuals and institutions receiving the funds and that aid will continue to flow into Honduras.

For 2013, the U.S. Congress approved around $36 million for programs in Honduras, $26 million of which was marked for police and security initiatives, according to Brownfield. Of this funding, Congress is reportedly withholding $11 million over human rights concerns.

Brownfield estimated police reform in the Central American country could take five to ten years. He noted the U.S.' current strategy "is to support the process over the years and at the same time work with small, specialized units" of vetted officers that would be monitored. He also added that the U.S. was looking to create specialized anti-gang and anti-drug units that would work with the FBI and DEA.

These reports follow last year's revelations that Honduran citizens had been killed during U.S.-funded counternarcotics operations by specially vetted security force units.

Speaking at a recent event at the Americas Society/Council of the Americas in Washington on Central American security, Assistant Secretary Brownfield said, "We do not need to create law enforcement 'paradise' in Central America. What we need to do is improve capabilities by 10 or 15 percent. That will drive up the cost for the trafficking organizations of doing business in and through Central America."

Costa Rica

While in Costa Rica Assistant Secretary Brownfield met with Anti-Drug Commissioner Mauricio Boraschi and Public Security Minister Mario Zamora. He announced the U.S. government would provide $6-$7 million to fight drug trafficking. The funds, he said, would provide for "training of prosecutors and investigators, the professionalization of police corps, for border control tasks, and for supporting anti-drug police units during land and sea operations."

Brownfield also revealed another $1.6 million would be provided to government institutions and NGOs to fight domestic violence.

A recent Associated Press article notes that in 2012 the U.S. spent more than $18.4 million in direct security in Costa Rica. The article discusses increased U.S. involvement in the country and is definitely worth a read. It cited risk-analysis firm Southern Pulse director Sam Logan as saying Costa Rica was "the closest the U.S. has to a protectorate in Central America."

In the past few years, Costa Rica has been threatened by rising domestic drug consumption, increasing levels of violence and expanding presence of Mexican drug cartels. Organized crime is also on the rise. As President Laura Chinchilla and Brownfield have both noted, Costa Rica is a “victim of its geography,” located between cocaine producing countries in South America and the region's number one consumer - the United States. The country has become a more attractive transit country for traffickers as counternarcotics operations targeting more traditional routes have shifted smugglers' tactics.

According to the U.S. State Department's 2013 International Narcotics Strategy Report, law enforcement agencies in the army-less country are under-resourced and have limited capacity. In 2012, Costa Rica increased its police budget by 11% to $351.5 million, which the Wall Street Journal pointed out was slightly less than the Baltimore police force's budget.

In a radio interview while in Costa Rica, Brownfield warned the situation is likely to worsen. He said tackling crime would "require more force, more collaboration between the United States and Costa Rica during the next two to three years" and that more focus on maritime interdiction and border and port security would be required. He underscored the importance of creating opportunity but also the need for the threat of legal consequences for those involved in drug trafficking.

During the interview, Brownfield said that the argument that the United States’ role as the main consumer in the region creates the problem is "up to a certain point, stuck in the 1990s," citing that cocaine and methamphetamine consumption has dropped considerably in the past seven years.

The White House just announced that President Obama will be traveling to Mexico and Costa Rica May 2-4. In Mexico he will meet with President Peña Nieto to discuss border security, trade, and immigration, among other topics. In Costa Rica he will meet with President Chinchilla and other leaders of countries part of the Central American Integration System (SICA), also to discuss trade and security.

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.”

The following is a round-up of some of the top news highlights from around the region this week.

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Guatemala

Peru

Colombia

Southcom

Mexico

There was a lot of media attention this week surrounding Mexican security. For a collection of articles on Mexico, please see the Just the Facts database. Here are some highlights:

Venezuela

U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) and U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) released their annual posture statements this week. In releasing the posture statements, the commanders of both Southcom (General John Kelly) and Northcom (General Charles Jacoby, Jr.) also testified in front of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

Most of the discussion at both hearings centered on how the sequester cuts will affect Southcom's and Northcom's operations. Before the sequester, the Pentagon budget was already going to be cut by $487 billion over 10 years, as agreed to in an August 2011 budget law. On March 1 of this year, another $43 billion in cuts went into effect. Southcom commander, General John Kelly, said Southern Command is the "economy of force command," meaning that it is already working on a small budget and that with the cuts it will be forced "to do less with less."

The topics discussed at the hearings included:

The House hearing can be watched in full (2 hr) here, and the Southern Command posture statement can be accessed here.

There will be fewer engagements and trainings

In Southcom commander Gen. Kelly's posture statement and testimonies, he reiterated that the sequester cuts would negatively effect U.S. presence and partnerships in the region, causing many countries to question the United States' commitment to the region.

"The concern on the part of many of our Latin American friends and partners is that we're withdrawing," Gen. Kelly said. He reiterated that, "they all want us in their lives, with a few exceptions. It means a lot that we’re down there." "I'm a rock star when I show up," he said later in a press conference at the Pentagon.

Yesterday, before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee (HASC), he said sequestration cuts would force military-to-military engagements to be cut by 50 percent. In the Appendix of the posture statement, Gen. Kelly lists a few of the canceled engagements.

In his testimony, Gen. Kelly also underscored that while U.S. presence in the region is already low, if that presence drops, nations from other regions will be there to step in and fill the void, which could have long-term negative effects on U.S. leadership in the region.

"It's hard to argue that the U.S. should be the partner of choice there when we aren't partnering there." He mentioned that other countries, like China, and in some cases Russia, have already started to replace the U.S.

There will be fewer ships

In both testimonies, Gen. Kelly said the number of ships performing Southern Command's counternarcotics duties would drop from five or six ships to one or none. Kelly said his ideal ship fleet would number 14. "Every ship I lose, you lose 20-25 tons of cocaine seized," he said in a press conference at the Pentagon.

With the current number of ships (and this includes Coast Guard cutters), Southcom seized 150-200 tons of cocaine in 2012. As stated by Gen. Kelly in yesterday's Senate hearing, that is only about 20 percent of all drugs estimated to enter the U.S. (by some numbers). The Obama Administration has set a goal for 40 percent to be interdicted by 2015.

As WOLA's Adam Isacson noted on his blog, Southcom's posture statement projects the budget cut will result in 62 tons less this year. The overall point of all discussions was that there would be fewer ships, meaning more drugs will reach the United States in 2013.

Iran and China

There were a fair number of questions about both Iran and China in both hearings.
In his testimony before the HASC, Gen. Kelly said that while China is economically aggressive in the region, it is not a threat. As for Iran, he noted the government has been trying to expand economically and politically into the region, but has gained little traction and there "is nothing to be too concerned about" as an immediate threat.

Gen. Kelly expanded on China's involvement a bit more in the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He noted the Chinese have increased military-to-military relations in the region -- they deployed a hospital ship and paid for some military commanders in the hemisphere to be trained in China. He also noted that the Chinese have been increasingly selling military hardware to anyone who will buy it and that while American equipment was higher quality, purchasers get tired of waiting to go through the bureaucracy. He then said that private companies were not "picking up the slack" because of restrictions.

"The Network"

General Kelly cited "the Network," or the global illicit market, as the biggest threat to security in the hemisphere. This "network of networks" is "a very dangerous thing to have working as effectively as is does" because "almost anything can get on that network and move with an efficiency that rivals anything Federal Express can do. There are 1,200 hubs in the U.S. now." Both Gen. Kelly and Northcom commander Gen. Jacoby went on to explain several times how drug money fuels "the Network" with the money going to human trafficking, Islamic extremist groups and into the sex trade. Both commanders said that not enough is being done to target the Network, but that they "understand the Network in the same way [they] understand Al Qaeda."

Flow of drugs

• The flow of drugs is going back to the Caribbean.

  General Kelly noted that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, all drugs moved through the Caribbean, but U.S. counternarcotics operations stopped that flow, pushing the routes through Central America up into Mexico. Now with "Operation Martillo," a surge operation in the Caribbean and along Central America's coasts that has been "fairly successful," General Kelly said traffickers are shifting back into the Caribbean.

• When questioned about what was being done to stem the flow of drugs and the associated increase in violence, particularly in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, General Kelly said Southcom is monitoring the problem closely, but that, "at the end of the day my responsibility is detection and monitoring. DEA, FBI, Treasury are in interdiction efforts, if I don’t have the budget I can't do anything but watch the drugs goes by."
• Brazil is the second-biggest cocaine consumer nation.

  According to General Kelly, nearly all cocaine from Bolivia and Peru move into Brazil before being distributed to the domestic market or before moving on to West Africa, where the drug trade in increasingly funding organized criminal groups.

Guantánamo Bay

In both hearings, Guantánamo was brought up quite a bit, but particularly in the House where there was a lot of discussion about the facility and the conditions for detainees and troops. General Kelly insisted that the inmates were humanely treated and that the real issue was the living conditions for the troops. He said he would need $150 - $170 million for the type of renovation that needs to be done, including putting in medical care facilities for aging inmates.

Venezuela

In both the House and the Senate, committee members asked Gen. Kelly about U.S.- Venezuela relations after the death of Hugo Chávez. Gen. Kelly echoed what several analysts have said: That Vice President Nicolás Maduro, although he lacks the charm of Chávez, will likely win the election in April and not much will change in terms of relations with the U.S. General Kelly stressed that whoever does win the presidency will inherit a country plagued by high crime and a faltering economy.

Colombia as a model

Several times Gen. Kelly gave "a shout-out" to Colombia for being a "shining example of how to win a drug war." When questioned in the House how he would characterize the violence and what was being done to address it, Gen. Kelly responded by saying that the violence has gone down in the past 10-12 years and that is has been pushed away from population centers. He noted the U.S. is assisting Colombia with landmine removal, as the country has the second-highest number of landmine victims after Afghanistan.

Border

There were a few questions about the border and Mexico, which falls under Northern Command's purview. When asked about spillover violence, General Jacoby said Northcom was working with Mexico in routine border exercises and information sharing but that "security is going to remain a moving target, not geographically bound." He noted that violence has been decreasing in northern Mexico and been moving deeper into the country. He also said that drones and technology -- like sensors -- are key to keeping the border secure.

• 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.

The following is a round-up of some of the top news highlights from around the region this week.

Region

Colombia

• This report comes on the heels of another report (which was highlighted in last week's post) from Nuevo Arco Iris that, in addition to looking at changes in the FARC's on-the-ground tactics, looks at the consolidation of neo-paramilitary cartels in the country. As InSight Crime notes, "'From Caguan to Havana' charts how the remaining factions of demobilized paramilitary groups and dismantled drug cartels have converged around two criminal structures: the Rastrojos and the Urabeños."

Mexico

Guatemala

El Salvador

Venezuela