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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
Time: 9:07 pm
Time: 9:07 pm
Results for war on drugs (central america)
1 results foundAuthor: Isacson, Adam Title: Time to Listen: Trends in U.S. Security Assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean Summary: The list grows longer: sitting Latin American presidents, including the United States' principal allies; past presidents; the Organization of American States; the Summit of the Americas; civil society leaders from all nations. The clamor for drug policy reform, including for a reformed U.S. drug policy in Latin America, is growing rapidly. But Washington isn't hearing it. The Obama Administration's counternarcotics strategy has continued largely unchanged. In fact, over the past few years the United States has expanded its military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies' direct involvement in counternarcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere. This has been particularly true in Central America, where it has had disturbing human rights impacts. Aid numbers do not tell the whole story. In dollar terms, assistance to most Latin American and Caribbean nations' militaries and police forces has declined since 2010, as Colombia's and Mexico's large aid packages wind down. Today, only aid to Central America is increasing significantly. For its part, the Defense Department is facing cuts and turning most of its attention to other regions. While the Pentagon's current approach to Latin America does not include major base construction or new massive aid packages, however, the United States is still providing significant amounts of aid and training to Latin America's armed forces and police. In addition to large-scale counter-drug operations, the region is seeing an increase in training visits from U.S. Special Forces, a greater presence of intelligence personnel and drones (while countries are obtaining drones, mostly not from the United States), and rapidly growing use of military and police trainers from third countries, especially Colombia. Much of what takes place may not show up as large budget amounts, but it is shrouded by secrecy, poor reporting to Congress and the public, and a migration of programs' management from the State Department to the Defense Department. A lack of transparency leads to a lack of debate about consequences and alternatives, for human rights, for civil-military relations, and for the United States' standing in the region. On human rights, the Obama Administration has been occasionally willing to raise tough issues with allies. It has encouraged trials in civilian, not military, courts for soldiers accused of committing gross human rights abuses, especially in Mexico and Colombia. It has supported the Rios Montt genocide trial in Guatemala, and has sided with countries and human rights groups that seek to maintain, not weaken, the current Inter-American human rights system. Details: Washington, DC: Center for International Policy, Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and Washington Office on Latin America, 2013. 32p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 25, 2014 at: http://lawg.org/storage/documents/Time_to_Listen-Trends_in_U.S._Security_Assistance_to_Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Central America URL: http://lawg.org/storage/documents/Time_to_Listen-Trends_in_U.S._Security_Assistance_to_Latin_America_and_the_Caribbean.pdf Shelf Number: 131150 Keywords: Drug Control PolicyDrug EnforcementDrug PolicyDrug TraffickingDrug-Related ViolenceHuman Rights AbusesWar on Drugs (Central America) |