US Police Operations/Latin America
Klare, Mike
In the report of the spring 1969 Presidential Mission for the Western Hemisphere, Nelson Rockefeller predictably speaks of the danger of 'communist subversion' to Latin America. In an assessment...
...The Foreign Assistance Program, Annual Report to the Congress, Fiscal Year 1968 (Washington, D.C.: 1969), p. 51...
...and David Sanford's article on IPA in The New Republic (Feb...
...The IPA Faculty," IPA Review (Jan., 1967) p. 11...
...Accordingly, the United States should meet reasonable requests from other hemisphere governments for trucks, jeeps, helicopters, and like equipment to provide mobility and logistical support for these forces...
...3 In this kind of environment, accroding to U.S...
...And, in most cases that I have examined, this was not too difficult to do...
...Yet the police are first and best line of defense against insurgency...
...Four countries (Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala) with active insurgency are included...
...for radios, and other command control equipment for proper communications among the forces...
...For background, see: Willard F. Barber and C. Neale Ronning, Internal Security and Military Power (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1966), pp...
...military strategy in the region from defense against extrahemispheric attack to defense against internal revolutionary struggle...
...The Governor warns, however, that "radical revolutionary elements in the hemisphere appear to be increasingly turning toward urban terrorism in their attempts to bring down the existing order...
...The Federal government is playing a similar role with respect to urban police forces in the United States...
...For those who know how to take advantage of it, the urban milieu can be as protective as the jungle...
...Whereas a civil police force...is with the people all the time carrying on the normal functions of control of or apprehension of ordinary or common criminals and can, therefore, move very quickly whenever an insurgent problem develops...
...Consequently, they have become increasingly less capable of providing either the essential psychological support or the internal security that is their major function...
...3. John L. Sorenson, Urban Insurgency Cases (Santa Barbara, Cal.: Defense Research Corp., 1965), p. 7. 4. U.S...
...The U.S...
...and for small arms for security forces...
...Thus, a cycle of terrorist actions and repressive counter-reactions tend to polarize and unsettle the political situation, creating more fertile ground for radical solutions among large segments of the population...
...61-62...
...David Burks of Indiana University complained that "...civil security forces have received much less attention from the United States than the military...
...Foreign Assistance Program indicated that at that time 91 persons were employed by AID as Public Safety Advisers in Latin America...
...Published by the Iternational Police Academy, Washington, D.C...
...98, 170...
...Although this document is phrased in standard public relations jargon, there is no difficulty in translating the statement into understandable terms...
...of Santa Barbara (now the General Research Corp...
...27-29...
...Police well integrated with the population and using minimum force can often control a crisis before it can escalate to dangerous proportions...
...II (Oct., 1968), pp...
...7. 8. Ibid., pp...
...11, 1967...
...14 In addition to training programs in the United States, AID sends "Public Safety Advisers" to Latin America to provide "on-the-job" training to police officers...
...Specifically, he suggests that "...the training program which brings military and police personnel from the other hemispheric nations to the United States and to training centers in Panama be continued and strengthened...
...Aside from grants, the most important U.S...
...and Internal Security (riot control formations, chemical munitions, terrorist countermeasures...
...In 1965 John L. Sorenson of the Defense Research Corp...
...2 Rockefeller's concern with the urban battlefield reflects the icreasing audacity of urban guerrillas-especially in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina--and the projections of America's defense analysts...
...6 In his "Recommendations for Action," Rockefeller asserts that it is in the interests of the United States to upgrade the police forces of Latin America...
...9. See the author's "Urban Counterinsurgency: An Introduction," Viet-Report, vol...
...See the author's "U.S...
...63-64...
...The troops are not trained--their orientation is not such that they are really competent to handle this kind of problem...
...In this regard, Rockefeller is forced to acknowledge that "there have, unfortunately, been many such instances of the use of the police...
...In 1962, President Kennedy established the Inter-American Police Academy at Fort Davis in the Panama Canal Zone...
...Curriculum," IPA Review (Jan., 1967), p. 12...
...III (Summer, 1968), pp...
...But there comes a point--and this came in Cuba in 1957 and 1958 when Castro was in the Sierra Maestra-there can come a point when the army cannot handle this kind of situation simply because the military establishment tends to use too much force, tends to use the wrong techniques and tends, therefore, to polarize the population and gradually force the majority of those who are politically active to support the revolutionary or insurgent force...
...thus programs to upgrade police capabilities "to maintain law and order in a humane manner" (Colombia) stand for the acquisition of tear gas and other antiriot munitions, and "the implementation of a modern records system" (El Salvador) and "assistance in establishing a central identification system" (Ecuador) should read, " creation of an intelligence service...
...This type of subversion is more difficult to control and governments are forced to use increasingly repressive measures to deal with it...
...Physical cover is multidimensional due to walls, roofs, basements, and utility passages...
...Military Operations/ Latin America," NACLA Newsletter, vol...
...counter-insurgency strategists, the regular armed forces are not as effective as the police...
...IPA's in-house publication, IPA Review , published monthly in Washington, D.C., is the best regular source of information on the Academy...
...In testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on American Republics Affairs, Prof...
...There is a tendency in the United States to equate the police in other American republics with political action and repression...
...Professor Burks, in his report to the Senate Subcommittee, indicated that, "As of March, 1967, the Public Safety Division of AID operated public safety programs in fourteen Latin American countries and in Guyana and Jamaica...
...Survey of the Alliance for Progress, p. 209...
...In 1964, the school was moved to Washington, D.C., and the name changed to International Police Academy (IPA...
...and particularly from the FBI...
...in10 fact, U.S...
...As reported in the Guatemal-n press, El Grafico (Feb...
...lent Guatemala $200,000 to purchase 54 Ford automobiles to be used by the police in patroling the guerrilla-infested countryside...
...40-47...
...6. Rockefeller Report, pp...
...These advisers (whose relations to Latin police forces is comparable to that of U.S.Special Forces personnel who counsel Latin military forces) are usually drawn from local, state and Federal law enforcement agencies in the U.S...
...4 The concern with 'minimum force' in controlling disorders is a central feature of Burks' argument: "...I think we have to face a reality...
...Unemployment is high, especially among the young, ranging as high as 25 to 40 per cent in some countries....These sprawling urban areas of the hemisphere spawn restlessness and anger which are readily exploited by the varying forces that thrive on trouble...
...Fighting is likely to be in confined areas where small numbers of men may be able to stand against forces far superior in number...
...As of February 1969, some 3,000 students (drawn from hird World police agencies) had graduated from the Academy, of whom 60 percent were Latin Americans...
...Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on American Republics Affairs, Survey of the Alliance for Progress...
...2. Ibid., pp...
...The reality is that when the insurgents appear, the governments will call upon the army to eliminate the insurgents...
...12 IPA students also travel to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to study "civil-military relationships in counterinsurgency operations and police support in unconventional warfare...
...The mass of people makes the insurgent difficult to identify...
...contribution to the strengthening of Latin American police forces consists of training programs and supply of police equipment (particularly communications equipment and vehicles...
...This document, dated July 18, 1969, is reproduced below as an Appendix...
...7 One can safely assume that these suggestions will evoke a warm response in Washington...
...The urban man tends to become both depersonalized and fragmented in his human relationships...
...19, 1967) and Impacto (same date...
...13 From what is known of IPA, it is clear that the major emphasis at the Academy is on urban counterinsurgency and on the control of strikes and demonstrations...
...11 In 1969, Mr...
...police operations in Latin America have been expanding ever since John F. Kennedy changed the emphasis of U.S...
...activity is training...
...15 FOOTNOTES: 1. The Rockefeller Report on the Americas, The Official Report of a Presidential Mission for the Western Hemisphere, by Nelson A. Rockefeller (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969), p. 34...
...has also been active in helping Latin police forces establish modern storage and retrieval systems for their intelligence networks...
...The course of instruction at IPA is divided into three major divisions: police Management (organization, command and staff relationships, public relations...
...9) At the present time, such assistance is channeled through the Agency for International Development (AID), and often consLmes a major portion of AID funds supposedly earmarked for "social betterment" programs in Latin America...
...1 The turn toward urban guerrilla warfare is particularly disturbing, according to Rockefeller, because of the general urban atmosphere in Latin America: "With urbanization in the Western Hemisphere have come crowded living conditions and a loss of living space in physical and psychological terms...
...5. Ibid., p. 430...
...In addition, "The United States should respond to requests for assistance of the police and security forces of the hemisphere nations by providing them with the essential tools to do their jobs...
...wrote that, "The city is geographically complex and physically intricate as a fighting terrain...
...10 Details of these programs are hard to come by, but it is known, for instance, that in 1967 the U.S...
...Police Operations (criminalistics, communications, border control, intelligence...
...Montanari of the AID Information Staff provided the Guardian with a brief description of AID Public Safety programs in Latin America...
...The counterinsurgency role of the police, however, concerns the Governor most, and he indicates that, "At the present time...police forces of many countries have not been strengthened as population and great urban growth have taken place...
...Compilation of Studies and Hearings, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 1969, p. 414...
...In an assessment of the military situation, Rockefeller notes that the native armed forces "have gradually improved their capabilities for dealing with Castro-type agrarian guerrillas...
...8 At the present time, the U.S...
...The 1968 annual report on the U.S...
...5 These views have apparently been adopted by Governor Rockefeller, who reported to the President that "there is not in the United States a full appreciation of the important role played by the police...
Vol. 3 • January 1970 • No. 9
