Latin AmericaR. James Ferguson © 2006
Week 10:
The Latin American Search for Security and
Foreign Policy Convergence in the 21st Century
Topics: -
1. Types of Security
2. The Problem of Insecurity in the Latin American Context
3. Beyond Traditional Patterns of Military Cooperation
4. Lessons from the Malvinas Dispute: Diplomatic Mismanagement
and Military Over-reach
5. Haiti and the Failure of International Invention
6. The Search for a Convergent Foreign Policy in the 21st Century
7. References and Resources
1. Types of Security
This week we will look at the issue of security in the Western Hemispheric and Latin American contexts. Security here means much more than just the security of the nation-state in military terms, and the ability to defend the state's borders and resources from external attack. It also includes the dimension of internal domestic security, including the safety of social groups, minorities and individuals. In the broader sense it also includes economic security and the ability of citizens to maintain their political rights. It thus includes the ideas of comprehensive security (Malik 1992, p47) and human security for individuals and communities (Axworthy 1999). In spite of progress in democratic reform in many countries, improvements in security and development have been uneven: -
For many Latin Americans . . . hopes of economic development, political stability, and government institutions able to provide justice and security and basic human requirements remained unfulfilled. The regions' two-decade-long struggle to reform state institutions, so that they promote economic growth and provide capable civilian leadership focused on public welfare rather than personal convenience or gain, continued to yield mixed results. (Bearman 2001, p70)
Security perceptions at one level (the state, the region) may have negative impact on the level of security experienced at other levels (the individual, the local region etc.). Furthermore, different emphases in security will sometimes involve negative trade offs, e.g. increased policing and security monitoring can impinge on human rights, privacy, and the well-being of minority rights and indigenous groups. When security concerns are raised it is always import to ask 'security for whom', and assessment negative trade-offs that may occur with the emphasis on one kind of security over others (see earlier lectures for these debates in relation to Mexico and Colombia). On this basis security should never just be measured at the national level; it should also operate the regional, local community and human levels (see Tickner & Mason 2003).
At present, it seems that in spite of strong efforts at regional cooperation and past successes in demilitarisation (see lectures 7 & 9), these has not yet fully created a security community consistently addressing these issues regionally, though this has begun to be considered in the Southern Cone, as well as in the inter-related transnational problems of the Andean Region. The security community concept can be summarised: -
A security community is in essence a group of states within a region that share dependable expectations of peaceful change. That is, the community itself provides some degree of security against a perceived common external enemy and reinforces the norms and practices related to intragroup nonviolent conflict resolution. The expectation of peaceful resolution of conflicts among the members is attributable to three elements:
1. Trust that the other members of the community will abide by the same norms that comes not only from shared interests but also from a shared identity in part molded by a common political or civic culture
2. Community governance structures that shape institutions, practices, and understandings related to peaceful conflict resolution
3. The embedding of the sovereign members in a set of social relations within the community that generates shared understandings of security, welfare, and autonomy
Although security communities are commonly conflated with regional structures of economic integration, it is important to stress that they go far beyond the fairly narrow, self-interested basis of economic cooperation contemplated by integration theory. (Tickner & Mason 2003)
2. The Problem of Insecurity in the Latin American Context
Problems in creating security at all these levels has been identified as a major problem for Latin America. Low security, both in terms of perception and identified conditions of violence, is caused by or linked with: -
- Violence (political and criminal) and crime wastes or redirectes a sizeable percentage of GDP, thus slowing growth and development. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDP) argued that 'violence against goods and people is equivalent to the destruction or transfer of resources equal to nearly 14.2% of Latin America's entire gross domestic product' (Bearman 2001, p84). It is possible to argue that the 'transfer of resources from victims to thieves is greater than the sum total distributive effect of all public-finance policies' (Bearman 2001, p84). In effect, this is the high-jacking of development. In such conditions, well-intentioned neo-liberal reform can be easily undermined, e.g. the mixed success of privatisation programs and aid flows over the last decade (Arbelaez & Milman 2000).
- Under such conditions, there may be a need to furtherreform the reform process to inspire greater public confidence and inclusiveness (see Lora & Panizza 2002). On this basis, strong resistance to the 'Washington Consensus' of neo-liberal economic reform continues in many groups within Latin American states (Ross 2002). Indeed, a rigid application of a complete neo-liberal agenda may be destabilising for developing states: -
More than anywhere else in the world, Latin America's current predicament shows the definitive failure of the Washington Consensus as an engine for sustainable development. Applied by both conservative and progressive administrations in virtually all Latin American countries for the last 25 years, the so-called Consensus encompassed the full range of market-oriented policies advocated by economic orthodoxy--liberalization of trade and financial flows, deregulation of market-based activity, and the privatization of industry and public services. China, India and parts of East Asia, in contrast, never accepted many of these key policy ingredients. The payoff has been evident not only in social outcomes, but also in such key economic indicators as low inflation and reduced government deficits. Asia's experience stands out in marked contrast to Latin America's anaemic growth rates and stagnant levels of per capita income. (Lopez 2003; see further Aiyer 2001)
* Real and perceived social threats undermine progress towards genuine democracy and power-sharing within Latin American societies, as distinct from procedural democracy with high levels of corruption and political indifference (see Lecture 9). In Haiti, for instance, voter turn-out in elections in the year 2000 may have been as low as 15%, though the exact number is disputed (Kennedy 2001; see below). Likewise, these problems still beset reform in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and to some extent Chile, even as these states build stronger democratic credentials.
* Threat perceptions and violence lead to political polarisation, and the formation of either revolutionary groups (guerrillas) or self-help groups (paramilitaries) that may engage in fracturing the unity of the state (oligopoly of sovereignty), or virtual civil war (as in Colombia). In other cases, local segments of the nation feel excluded and seek autonomous social formations, e.g. autonomous communities in the Chiapas region of Mexico, and reform movements in Brazil, indigenous Mapuche associations which have occupied land and engaged in strong protests in Chile (Devalpo 2006; Munoz 2003).
* Patterns of organised and trans-nationally networked crime and their control of sections of the national resource base, including the illegal drug trade and a growing arms trade (see Klare 1997), as well as money laundering, corruption of government institutions, kidnapping and protection rackets directed at companies and individuals and people smuggling. This remains a major transnational as well as national problem for the Western hemisphere, heightening insecurity across borders. Though perhaps most notable in Colombia and to a lesser degree Mexico, these patterns of exports have used different routes at different types, e.g. via Panama, the Caribbean, at time Haiti and Brazil.
- Patterns of political and economic corruption, often based on the long-term failure or weaknesses of government institutions. This is exacerbated and utilised by organised criminal organisations, as well as by ongoing patterns of poverty, unemployment and lack of confidence in government legitimacy. In Brazil, for example, a long-term investigation published in December 2000 cited 827 individuals across the country that should be prosecuted, including 'federal and state deputies, mayors, governors, police, bankers and businessmen', with the Brazilian Senate for the first time expelling some of its elected representatives for 'misconduct' (Bearman 2001, p74). In the case of Colombia, linkages between organised crime and armed groupsmay now be a larger source of insecurity than revolutionary political ideals, with paramilitary groups turning in their arms to some degree through 2005-2006 under the governments Justice and Peace Law, but with continued survival of hidden criminal networks that can rearm or re-organise at later dates (see lecture 5). In once assessment: -
By early March 2006, President Alvaro Uribe had achieved demobilisation of some 24,000 of an estimated 27,000 to 29,000 paramilitaries, including its most notorious commanders, using a 2002 law which authorises pardons for rebellion and sedition. Focusing on dismantling the overt military structures of the paramilitaries, but not their powerful mafia-like criminal networks that continue to exist in many parts of Colombia, however, his government has not sent a clear signal that it is determined to apply the JPL rigorously and take into account the arguments of its many critics. Indeed, the new law is still not being implemented – because of a constitutional court review but also tactical calculations. (ICG 2006)
* The interconnection between drugs, insurgent groups, and cross-border activities. This has been a major problem for the Andean countries (see Tickner & Mason 2003) and for Mexico. Thus, even successful efforts to control drug-running guerrillas can simply move these problems across borders. Thus through the late 1990s: -
In Peru, Fujimori managed to constrain, if not completely eliminate, the drug-running Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas and to cut off the supply chain for coca production. This allowed peasants to move into other crops. To complete the job, the Peruvian Air Force took to shooting down the drug runners' light aircraft. The end result was to chase the narcotics business further north to Colombia (Bearman 2001, p82; see further Stone 2002)
In turn, there are fears in Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador that even a successful Plan Colombia and Democratic Security agenda would simply push guerrilla activities across international borders again, as well as increase refugee flows out of affected areas (Bearman 2001, p82). Although there are now efforts to contain the drug flow at the level of the region, via Washington's Andean Counterdrug Initiative, with $731 million in aid for the program, this has still not led to a strongly coordinated policy across different states, and over half of this aid still goes to Colombia (Chipman 2003, p176). Chile has also tightened control of its borders in relation to these concerns, via its special border control units, the Carabineros (Chipman 2003, p177). Likewise, resistance to drug eradication programs in Peru and Bolivia also contain elements of social protest, leading to slow progress in these programs: -
Anti-drug, law enforcement and alternative development efforts in Bolivia and Peru over the last twenty years have not achieved a lasting reduction of illicit coca crops. Since the large-scale eradication campaigns in the second half of the 1990s, coca cultivation has again gained momentum in both countries, reaching 73,000 hectares at the end of 2003 when the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimated combined annual cocaine production potential at 215 tons. Early indications are that there was another increase in 2004. . . .
While it is unconstructive and unwise to brand the Bolivian and Peruvian social movements and their leaders as "narco-delinquents" or "narco-terrorists", the coca grower organisations in those countries will only gain greater international credibility if they sever all existing ties with drug trafficking networks and articulate democratically their legitimate demands for socio-economic change, including legal coca cultivation for traditional purposes. (ICG 2005)
* The response over the last five years has in part been the militarisation of social problems, whereby governments and agencies seek to control social problems through enlarging and modernising their military and police forces (Isacson 2001). Ironically, these overly strong militaries often then continue to be a source of insecurity for ordinary citizens. This has occurred in the past in Mexico and Brazil, and is currently a strong component of U.S. foreign policy and Colombia domestic policy through Plan Colombia (see Week 6). The training of special anti-narcotic battalions and the purchase of 60 Blackhawk and 42 Huey helicopters (Bearman 2001, p81) has aided the ability of the Colombian government to militarily engage guerrillas and insurgents, but is unlikely to lead to a political or social solution to the problem, with the Uribe government through 2006 recognising that a straightforward military solution is unlikely, in spite of the weakening of one of the main guerrilla groups (ELN). In general terms, the Colombian army remains too reliant on a large draft contingent, and lacks the large number of elite troops needed to engage the FARC across all fronts, as distinct from a specialised operations focusing on particular areas, though this equation has begun to change through 2002-2006. The Uribe government of Colombia has sought to balance some of these trends by embedding these military strategies within a wider 'democratic security' agenda, strengthening other government institutions and civil society, but the civil components of the country have only begun to develop slow (see Mason 2003; ICG 2006).
* In effect, many of these problems are tried to the issue of transboundary effects, or to uncontrolled transnational activities and effects. Issues such as pollution, refugees, organised criminal groups and illicit forms of trade cross national boundaries with considerable ease. For example, in 2000, some 10,000 rifles intended for FARC, originating from Jordan, were dropped into Peruvian territory for further transhipment (Bearman 2001, p83). This problem is in part based on strong trade flows within regional and international trade flows (e.g. across the border between the U.S. and Mexico), but often uses traditional geographical patterns: -
The complex jungle-river network that integrates Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil is an open highway for smuggling drugs and small arms. No country has the resources or manpower to patrol the vast, unpopulated tropical forest of the interior region where contraband moves with ease. In early 2001, Brazil took steps to triple its Federal Police presence along the Colombia-Brazil border and to increase army presence and mobility along its borders with Peru, Venezuela and Guyana. When its air-surveillance radar network (SIVAM) becomes operative in 2002, permitting identification of the true level of illegal flights in the region, Brazil will become the focal point of illegal trafficking information in the Amazon. Brazil has already organised a monthly meeting of intelligence chiefs in the region to promote information sharing. (Bearman 2001, p83; see further Filho & Zirker 2000).
The problem, of cause, will then be the appropriate level of force to use against such flights. Already mistakes have been made, on one occasion leading to the shooting down of innocent small aircraft (Stone 2002). From 2003, this has been stepped up with a multi-pronged strategy by Brazil: -
Protecting Brazil's 11,200 kilometer Amazonian border is not easy. Today, the country has a two-part strategy: It has established the Northern Gutter program, which is aimed at populating the country's border regions with self-sustaining military-civilian settlements; and it has installed a $1.4 billion high-tech radar and surveillance system called the Amazon Vigilance System, or Sivam, which went into operation last July.
There are currently some 25,000 troops patrolling Brazil's Amazon borders, including several battalions of jungle combat soldiers, special forces personnel, and a flotilla of navy ships that patrol the region's rivers. "Practically the entire Amazon force is comprised of acculturated Native Americans who know indigenous languages and the numerous trails in the hinterlands. It is one of the best trained jungle forces in the world," Cavognari [A Brazilian Colonel] boasts. (Flynn 2003; brackets added)
Another sensitive issue is whether SIVAM air-data should be passed onto neighbours, and especially Colombia, where it can be used against FARC (Flynn 2003). The Caribbean nations, also, with U.S. help, have created the Unified Caribbean On-Line Regional Network (UNICORN) to share intelligence on drug flows, which has had some success in interdicting drug flows towards Europe, though Venezuela has refused to cooperate with this network (Bearman 2001, p83).