Civil-Military Relations Update
This post was compiled by WOLA Intern Michael Pelzer.
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Forty years after the 1973 coup in Chile, the nation has yet to come to grips with what happened. Chile has made strides towards reconciliation through the publishing of reports on the human rights abuses of the dictatorship, prosecution of some who committed abuses, and the apology of government officials who let it happen. One institution, however, refuses to accept its role: those searching for answers continually lobby the army for information pertaining to the rampant abuses during the seventies and eighties, only to be stonewalled by claims that that there is no more information to be provided.
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In preparation for the 2014 Soccer World Cup, Brazil is employing an aggressive approach to ensuring security. Employing tactics akin to that of counterinsurgency strategy, Special Forces enter a neighborhood, remove gang leaders, and search for drugs and weapons. After this initial shock and awe, a Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) is established. The UPPs are essentially federal police stations, manned by officers educated in community policing, whose job it is to patrol around the clock. As of present, 34 UPPs have been established with another six to be built before the World Cup next July. Thus far the areas where UUPs have been established have seen a reduction in crime, though there are some concerns. The areas where UUPs have been built are disproportionately wealthy, leading some to conclude that the new security policy is meant only to benefit a certain sector of society.
- Honduras’ recent creation of a new 5,000 person military police force tasked with combating organized crime was met with mixed reactions. The new force will be comprised of officers with experience in fighting organized crime who have gone through psychological testing and passed a polygraph. The first two units of this force, comprised of roughly 500 men each, were deployed to Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. Some fear that the increased militarization of police forces will only worsen the situation in Honduras.
- A recent op-ed piece in Excelsior described the dual role that the armed forces play in the security policy of Mexico. Íñigo Guevara noted that in an ideal world, the military would exist to defend Mexico only against external threats, but argued that present insecurity requires the military to take on both national defense and internal security. The security void the Mexican military fills is one of a counterinsurgency force, says Guevara. The author describes the recent shift of public security operations from direct action by the military, to inter-institutional operations with the goal of diminishing competition between agencies and promoting cooperation through the use of Mixed Operations Bases that coordinate interagency action.
- In Venezuela, the government of Nicolás Maduro has reasserted the military's internal role in public security, notes WOLA's Venezuela blog. Measures include the replacement of the head of civil security with a national guardsman. Under Plan Patria Segura, Maduro has expanded the role of military forces in performing roles normally delegated to law enforcement. This new role has led to a number of abuses; in 2012, the blog notes, "164 people lost their lives at the hands of the military."
- In an effort to address prison overcrowding, the government of Colombia has put forth a plan that will make use of army engineers in the construction of medium security prisons in rural areas. The project seeks to increase prison capacity by ten thousand, with the creation of roughly one hundred new facilities built by soldiers. The government’s goal is to ameliorate overcrowding.