Latin America Civil-Military Relations Update Share This /

This post was compiled by WOLA Intern Lesley Wellener.

• Colombia’s Supreme Court opened a formal investigation into General Javier Rey for statements he made on “Los informantes,” a show on the country’s Caracol television network. The retired general, citing “classified documents,” alleged that officials in the Colombian government have been meeting with the FARC guerrillas’ maximum leader on Venezuelan territory.
• InsightCrime.org reported on ongoing investigations into arms trafficking by members of El Salvador’s military. The investigation has now reached the highest levels of the military hierarchy, with a former defense minister, an ex-vice defense minister, and the police and intelligence chief all facing inquiry. Reports from June 23^rd state that agents from the prosecutor’s office raided the house of a former defense minister and found registrations for 29 firearms that were supposed to have been destroyed. They did not find the weapons.
• On July 22, Jorge Lanata, an investigative reporter from Argentina, published a report on the “calamitous” state of the Argentine armed forces’ equipment. In support of his expose, he cited complaints from Argentine troops participating in the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti. The troops complained of a lack of bulletproof vests and of outdated aircraft and naval vessels. Troops from other posts lodged similar complaints.
• President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro recently ratified a term extension for Minister of Defense Carmen Teresa Meléndez Rivas. Maduro also extended the term for the chief of the Strategic Operational Command of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces, Vladimir Padrino. Both extensions were announced during Venezuela’s Independence Day celebration.
• On June 30, the Army of Guatemala celebrated its 143^rd anniversary at the Mariscal Zavala Military Brigade where Defense Minister Manuel López Ambrosio focused remarks on the contributions women have made to the military.
• On June 20, Peru unveiled its plans for a Place of Memory, Tolerance, and Social Inclusion Museum, which will remember the victims of two decades of violence at the hands of the Shining Path and of the security forces. The museum is set to officially open later this year. The museum, according to a report in the UK Guardian, seeks “to address the country's enduring polarization over human rights abuses committed by the armed forces.”
• Animal rights activists in Bolivia launched a legal and media battle against a military instructor who killed a dog in front of his students at a military college in La Paz. The effort aims to punishment this teacher and to stop other instructors from using similar strategies to “desensitize” their students.
• Five military officers in Honduras were suspended from their positions due to the escape of five dangerous prisoners from the Marco Aurelio Soto national penitentiary, located in Tamara, Francisco Morazan.