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LATIN
AMERICA:
More US Aid Flows
Through Pentagon
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, (IPS) - U.S.
aid in Latin America is becoming
increasingly militarised,
according to a new report, which
warns that both the U.S.
Congress and the State
Department are losing control
over Washington's assistance to
the region as more of it is
channeled through the Pentagon.
The report, "Erasing the Lines",
is the latest in an annual
series on trends in U.S.
military programmes in Latin
America published since 1997 by
three Washington-based
human-rights and foreign-policy
groups -- the Washington Office
on Latin America (WOLA), the
Latin America Working Group
Education Fund (LAWGEF), and the
Centre for International Policy
(CIP).
It identifies 10 specific trends
that it says are effectively
reducing civilian control --
both here and in Latin America
-- over the region's military
and security forces, and that
have intensified over the past
year.
"The Defence Department is
expanding its control over
foreign military training
programmes that were once the
exclusive province of the
Department of State, lessening
congressional oversight, and
weakening the relationship
between military assistance and
foreign policy goals," according
to the report.
And, because more aid is being
channeled directly through the
Pentagon, a growing number of
economic and social trends --
including the rise of populism
throughout much of the region --
are being interpreted as
security threats, according to
one of the co-authors, Adam
Isacson of CIP.
"If the main tool you have is a
very big hammer, then every
problem starts looking like a
nail," he said.
Of particular concern, according
to the report, is pending
legislation -- the so-called
Inhofe Amendment, after
right-wing Oklahoma Sen. James
Inhofe -- that would give the
Pentagon up to 750 million
dollars to train and equip
foreign military and police
forces with minimal
Congressional and State
Department oversight.
While most of that money would
be targeted at areas, such as
the Middle East and Asia, that
are considered more strategic
than Latin America, it would
offer a major new,
general-purpose pool of funding
-- in addition to
counter-terrorism and
counter-drug assistance -- for
Latin American security forces
that would not be tied to a
specific purpose or
justification.
"This is a precedent," said WOLA
director Joy Olson. "We think
this will have lasting foreign
policy implications, and not
only in Latin America."
The proposed fund is part of a
larger trend that is
strengthening the Pentagon's
control over the design and
distribution of military
assistance programmes in Latin
America. Fifty-seven percent of
all U.S. military training for
the region was funded through
the Pentagon already last year.
Unlike the Cold War period, when
Washington provided
significantly more social and
economic aid than military
assistance to Latin America, it
has supplied roughly equal
amounts of the two kinds of
assistance -- a total of about
two billion dollars a year --
since the late 1990s, when
military aid to the region
skyrocketed due to the launch of
the largely U.S.-financed Plan
Colombia.
While aid levels have since
remained more or less the same,
the proportion of military aid
controlled by the State
Department -- and hence subject
to human rights and other
conditions prescribed by
Congress in the annual foreign
aid bill -- has declined
steadily.
"There are changes taking place,
with no public debate, that are
removing the State Department
from the foreign-security
assistance programme and making
40 years worth of human rights
and democracy legislation
irrelevant," according to Olson.
This trend -- and Congress' and
the State Department's
acquiescence to it -- has not
only alarmed rights-oriented
groups here and in the region,
but also other Latin America
experts concerned about growing
populist pressures and anti-U.S.
sentiment, as well as prospects
for the control of civilian-led
elected governments over their
armed forces.
"One does indeed wonder if the
State Department is abdicating
its role," Michael Shifter of
the Inter-American Dialogue, a
hemispheric think tank chaired
by former Brazilian President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, told
IPS.
"It's hard for (Secretary of
State Condoleezza) Rice to talk
about her commitment to
democracy, when all that money
is going through the Pentagon,
and the most visible cabinet
official in the region is
(Secretary of Defence Donald)
Rumsfeld. That is a real
problem, especially given the
growing anti-Americanism in the
region."
Equally worrisome is the "securitisation"
of social issues. Increasingly,
the Pentagon describes a wide
range of phenomena -- from youth
gangs and drug trafficking to
immigration and even populist
political movements -- as
"security threats" that call for
a military response when the
most effective answers are
economic development, stronger
justice systems, and social
safety nets, according to the
report.
"When you start calling
something a security threat, the
temptation is to use security
forces to address it," said
Isacson, who noted that the rise
of populist presidential
front-runner and cocalero leader
Evo Morales in Sunday's election
is "essentially the product of
U.S. drug policy in Bolivia. To
respond to social movements like
his with more military aid would
make the problem much, much
worse."
A second example is the
development in Central America,
with at least tacit U.S.
support, of national and
regional "rapid reaction forces"
that combine their police forces
and militaries to deal primarily
with gang violence.
While gang violence in the
region is indeed a serious
problem, investments in urban
areas, improved policing and
judicial systems, and financing
social, educational and
vocational programmes for youth
are likely to address the
problem more effectively in the
medium- to long-term, according
to the report.
Similarly, the U.S.-financed
"Enduring Friendship" programme,
which is designed to improve
regional capacities to fight
"trafficking in aliens,
narcotics, arms and other
contraband", could expand
military involvement in missions
that are already covered by
civilian agencies.
Finally, U.S. efforts to shield
its soldiers from the
jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court (ICC)
undermine not only the cause of
human rights in the region, but
have also done serious damage to
Washington's moral authority
there, the report says.
Last year, right-wing lawmakers
in Congress added certain kinds
of economic aid to a ban on
military assistance to those
governments that refused to sign
"bilateral immunity agreements"
exempting U.S. personnel from
the ICC's jurisdiction. A dozen
Latin American and Caribbean
nations are now at risk of
losing U.S. aid as a result.
"Latin American nations are
being punished by the United
States for taking a stand
against impunity for human
rights violators," said LAWGEF
director Lisa Haugaard.
She also noted that the Bush
administration's resumption of
military aid to Guatemala this
year -- albeit "non-lethal"
assistance -- for the first time
since 1990 marked another
setback to consolidating
civilian control over the armed
forces in that country.
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