Military and Police Training in Latin America, 2012

11/27/13
Sarah Kinosian
Latin America and the Caribbean
U.S. Policy, Counternarcotics

In 2012, the United States trained slightly more Latin American military and police forces than in 2011, according to the U.S. State and Defense Departments’ 2012-2013 Foreign Military Training Report (FMTR), the annual report that documents U.S. training of foreign forces. This increase is largely due to increases in Defense Department (DOD) training and training through Foreign Military Sales, a program through which countries purchase training and other defense articles and services. Top recipients of training in Latin America: Although the large-scale security packages to Colombia and Mexico are declining, both countries are still the top recipients of assistance in the region, while aid to Peru and Central America is increasing. Not surprisingly, the FMTR reflects these trends, as both countries are the top recipients of U.S. training with 3,599 (Colombia) and 2,627 (Mexico) trainees. Peru had 1,033 trainees. The exception here is Central America with 1,270 trainees total, which will be discussed below. Paraguay (488), Brazil (487) and Chile (428) followed Colombia, Mexico and Peru as top recipients of training in the region.

As the above chart shows, training to both Colombia and Mexico increased between 2011 and 2012. For Colombia, this increase from 3,054 to 3,599 trainees owes to a slight rise in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) training, which includes a wide expanse of courses like training pilots how to fly UH-60 (Black Hawk) Sikorsky helicopters, human rights courses, and other “leadership programs.” The other big leaps were in the Defense Department’s Combating Terrorism Fellowship program, and Foreign Military Sales, which represents training Colombia purchased from the United States. The amount of Mexican personnel trained also increased from 2,206 to 2,627, which is largely due to increases in training through two Defense Department accounts: Section 1004 Counter-Drug Assistance and the National Defense University-run Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (funded through the Regional Centers for Security Studies program). Top training programs in Latin America: Two of the three top training programs for Latin America since 1996 have been DOD’s Section 1004 Counter-Drug Assistance and the State Department's International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE). While Section 1004 has consistently remained the top program providing training to the region, its State Department counterpart has only spiked in certain years, barely cracking the top five programs most years. For example in 2012, INCLE was only the eighth-largest training program, while Section 1004 remained number one. It is important to note that there have been cases where the State Department has underreported the number of personnel trained by INCLE in the FMTR. In 2009, the FMTR reported INCLE had trained 5 personnel from Mexico, while a Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report showed INCLE had in fact trained 4,933 personnel that year.

In 2009, INCLE training spiked at the height of the Mérida Initiative, the United States’ main security package to Mexico, funded by the State Department. Most of the training funded by Mérida went through INCLE program - of the 5,732 personnel trained through the program in 2009, 4,933 were from Mexico. The large majority of training to Mexico now goes through the DOD’s Section 1004 program. Of the 3,205 personnel trained by Section 1004 in 2012, 2,202 were from Mexico (mostly from the Mexican Navy). The next top receivers were Peru (142) and Ecuador (102). Only 11 Colombians received Section 1004 training in 2012, down from 12,603 in 2007. Given the significant amount of trainees through Section 1004, 2012 experienced the continuation of a previous trend identified by Adam Isacson in his blog on the FMTR from 1999-2008: the Defense Department’s budget pays for more training than the State Department-managed foreign assistance budget. For 2012, this was still the case - the top five training programs were:

  • Section 1004 Counter-Drug Assistance (DOD): 3,205 trainees
  • International Military Education and Training (DOS): 1,688 trainees
  • Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (DOD): 1,231
  • Foreign Military Financing (DOS): 1,218
  • Foreign Military Sales: 1,281
  • Moreover, it appears the training programs that experienced a relatively significant increase in 2012 were largely Defense Department programs:
  • Section 1004 Counter-Drug Assistance (DOD) (from 2,916 to 3,205)
  • Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (DOD) (from 550 to 1,231)
  • Foreign Military Sales (from 344 to 1,281)
  • Global Peace Operations Initiative / Peacekeeping Operations (DOS) (from 152 to 886)
  • The big jump in counterterrorism training owes almost entirely to Colombia (183 trainees in 2011 to 441 trainees in 2012) and Peru (12 in 2011 to 294 in 2013), while the large increase in Global Peace Operations is due to Peru (1 in 2011 to 388 in 2013) and Paraguay (118 in 2011 to 354 in 2012). Central America

    In Central America, the top three recipients of training in 2012 were El Salvador with 320 trainees, Honduras with 290 trainees, and Panama with 230 trainees. The top five training programs were:

  • International Military Education Training (DOS) with 481 trainees
  • Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (DOD) with 283 trainees
  • Section 1004 Counter-Drug Assistance (DOD) with 211 trainees
  • Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (DOD) with 192 trainees
  • Global Peacekeeping Operations Initiative (DOS) with 44 trainees
  • Central America is the only region (other than Peru) in the hemisphere where security assistance is increasing in dollar terms. However, since 2008, U.S. training in the region has been declining. One likely reason for this is Colombia’s increasing role in training military and police forces throughout Central America. Faced with budget cuts due to the sequester, the U.S. government touts this as a cheaper alternative to direct U.S. training. As Colombia has been branded as the “model” in the war on drugs by the United States government, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, William Brownfield has called Colombia’s “"third-party training"” “a dividend that we get for investing over $9 billion in support for Plan Colombia.” The United States funds some of these trainings through the State Department-funded Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). However, the FMTR only documents trainings given by the United States directly. Looking at the breakdown of the numbers, the United States trained very few police officers in Central America in 2012:
  • El Salvador: 30 out of 320
  • Honduras: 0 out of 290
  • Panama: 42 out of 230
  • Guatemala: 1 out of 170
  • Costa Rica: 38 out of 131 *this number is proportionally higher because Costa Rica has no standing army.
  • Belize: 12 out of 91
  • Nicaragua: 0 out of 38
  • The above numbers represent rough estimates as training going to entire ministries might also include police. However, with the exception of Costa Rica this would have little effect on the proportions, as most of the trainings went to Army, Navy, or Coast Guard units. As noted in a February U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee hearing, the Colombian National Police are training more law enforcement officers in Central America than all of U.S. law enforcement put together. According to April numbers (pdf – table on pg. 23) from the Colombian Ministry of Defense, between 2010 and 2012 Colombia trained just under 5,000 security forces: Panama (2,491), Guatemala (563), Belize (12), Honduras (1,008), Costa Rica (357), El Salvador (242), and Nicaragua (8). Since then, that number has been accelerating. According to Colombia’s defense minister, the number of Panamanian police agents trained now reaches 4,000. There are several concerns about the proliferation of Colombian training of foreign military and police forces, which Just the Facts has previously covered. For one, Colombia’s security forces have yet to be held accountable for widespread human rights violations, including over 4,700 alleged extrajudicial killings of civilians. Another major worry is a lack of oversight -- there is little transparency for these U.S.-funded trainings. It remains unknown what these courses cover, how much U.S. funding these receive, or how many forces are trained with those funds. The 290 Honduran forces trained by the United States, for example, does not include any Honduran police agents trained by Colombian police as part of the once U.S.-backed police reform, funding for which was suspended in March due to slow implementation and lack of political will. This drop in U.S. training and increase in Colombian training is happening as several police forces throughout Central America are grappling with endemic corruption and alleged human rights abuses, so it is important to have oversight as to what lessons are being exported. The FMTR details what training courses are given to trainees from which military and police units and where these trainings are taking place. Although the details are not always as extensive as we would like, they reveal a great deal about the United States’ involvement with foreign forces throughout the world. To see data on U.S. military and police trainees by country, click here. To see data on trainees by program, click here. To see a list of institutions that provide training in the United States, click here.