Five new mass graves have been uncovered near Iguala, the Mexican town from which 43 missing university students disappeared last month. Colombia's constitutional court rules that a potential peace accord with the FARC rebel group may be put to a referendum to coincide with the country's next election in October 2015. A new military transport plane, made by the Brazilian company Embraer, cost $1.9 billion to produce. Click through for more Latin America security updates by the numbers.
On October 20, 2014, the Center for International Policy (CIP) launched Security Assistance Monitor, a new program and web-resource that will track U.S. military and police assistance and arms sales with a focus on Africa, Central Eurasia, Latin America and the Caribbean and the Middle East.
The Egyptian government denies carrying out airstrikes against militants in Libya, Mali has reportedly become the most dangerous country in the world for U.N. Peacekeepers, Mexican activists have threatened to bring the country to a standstll over the unsolved disappearance of dozens of students and the U.S. State Department urged the government of Azerbaijan to release human rights defenders held in pretrial detention. Read about these stories and more from this past week.
Mexican politicians asked citizens to stand by the armed forces despite allegations that soldiers massacred 22 people in June. Some supporters even created a social media campaign using the hashtag #yosoy126 to express their support for the army. Colombian activists petitioned President Juan Manuel Santos to reconider a law that would weaken civilian jurisdiction over the prosecution of military crimes. Click through for more Latin America civil-military relations updates.
During a state visit to Nigeria in early September, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Linda Thomas-Greenfield anounced that the United States was preparing to launch a major border security program to help Nigeria and its neighbors combat the growing Boko Haram threat. This blog seeks to identify what this border control program will look like as well as address any potential challenges to the program's success.
The United States Department of Defense is pursuing a new strategy for the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program of government-to-government arms sales. According to a Defense Department news release, an October 1 strategy document is “aimed at making the foreign military sales (FMS) process more responsive to allied nations’ needs by creating teams that will work closely with regional partners.” One notable aspect of this initiative might weaken provisions in existing law that ban purchasing countries’ exportation of military equipment to third countries.