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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:33 pm
Time: 11:33 pm
Results for intelligence gathering (guatemala)
1 results foundAuthor: Hernandez, Iduvina Title: A Long Road: Progress and Challenges in Guatemala's Intelligence Reform Summary: High levels of crime in Guatemala — including common crime, organized crime, drug trafficking, and youth gang violence — have once again brought debates over intelligence and security issues to the front page. Controlling crime and violence will require effective, strategic policies. Within the conceptual framework of a model of “democratic security,” Guatemala’s 1996 Peace Accords sought to implement more effective ways of combating and preventing crime and violence. At the same time, the Accords sought to establish mechanisms that would transform the security and intelligence apparatus to ensure that security demands would not threaten human rights and/or individual freedoms. This report describes the current state of intelligence system reform nine years after the signing of the Peace Accords and argues that the process of reforming the old intelligence structures has produced mixed results. Since the ceasefire almost a decade ago, successive governments have taken steps to dismantle the old security structures and establish new ones. The Óscar Berger Administration (2004–present) has made significant progress toward shrinking the size of the military. However, other important steps must still be taken to fully comply with the spirit of the Peace Accords and carry out a complete restructuring of the intelligence system. The absence of checks and balances, transparency, and an agreed upon set of norms has allowed the various intelligence entities to continue operating under only rudimentary legal controls, which do not necessarily guarantee that they will operate within the rule of law. Furthermore, the fact that intelligence operations are not fully regulated leaves citizens vulnerable to having their rights and liberties violated. Before this report went to press, two competing legislative initiatives on the Intelligence Framework Law were presented in the Guatemalan Congress. One of them represents a serious challenge to the consolidation of a democratic security system. The legal framework and restructuring of intelligence services proposed by the initiative not only violate commitments made in the Peace Accords but also give excessive power and a disturbing degree of autonomy to intelligence structures. Details: Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2005. 16p. Source: WOLA Special Report: Internet Resource: Accessed March 10, 2012 at http://www.wola.org/publications/a_long_road_progress_and_challenges_in_guatemala_s_intelligence_reform Year: 2005 Country: Guatemala URL: http://www.wola.org/publications/a_long_road_progress_and_challenges_in_guatemala_s_intelligence_reform Shelf Number: 124415 Keywords: Criminal Justice Reform (Guatemala)Intelligence (Guatemala)Intelligence Gathering (Guatemala) |