THE BUSH EFFECT: U.S. Military Involvement in Latin America Rises Development and Humanitarian Aid Fall

An Arms Trade Resource Center Fact Sheet

by Frida Berrigan and Jonathan Wingo, World Policy Institute

November 4, 2005 (PDF)

While President George W. Bush is in Latin America to push his controversial free trade agenda, there is another type of trade to be concerned about. U.S. military aid, training and arms sales to the region have all increased sharply since the beginning of the war on terrorism and threaten to exacerbate conflict, empty national coffers and sidetrack development programs.

Through the Foreign Military Financing program, military aid has drastically increased during the Bush administration. In 2000, U.S. military aid to Latin America was $3.4 million, a tiny share of worldwide FMF spending of $4.7 billion. By 2006, overall spending on Foreign Military Financing actually decreased to $4.5 billion, after peaking at $6 billion in 2003. But military aid to Latin America increased to over 34 times its year 2000 levels, to $122 million.

After the Summit of the Americas in Argentina, President Bush will visit Brazil and Panama. Argentina is the third largest recipient of military aid in Latin America, with a total of $6.3 million between 2000 and 2006. Panama, where the United States long controlled the canal area, is also a major recipient of military aid, with a total of $5 million for the same period. Argentina’s population is ten times that of Panama, making the near parity in their military aid levels striking.

But, when looking at military aid to the region, it is most noteworthy that El Salvador tops the list of recipients, with almost $23 million in FMF since 2002. This relatively large amount of military aid can be explained at least in part by looking at Salvadoran support for the war on terrorism. El Salvador is one of the Bush administration’s few remaining allies with troops in Iraq, and six Salvadoran Special Forces soldiers have been awarded the Bronze Star.

The administration has also sought to draw a parallel between El Salvador’s transition to democracy and Iraq’s rocky progress toward that goal. While in San Salvador last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld praised the country’s progress, saying “when one looks at this country and recognizes the fierce struggle that existed here 20 years ago and the success they’ve had despite the fact that there was a war raging during the elections, it just proves that the sweep of human history is for freedom.” He added, “We’ve seen it in [El Salvador], we’ve seen it in Afghanistan and I believe we’ll see it in Iraq.” [1]

El Salvador, which emerged from a U.S.-backed civil war in 1992, is also the second largest recipient on military training though IMET, and it is 11th on the list of arms sales recipients, purchasing a total of $46.8 million in weaponry between 2000 and 2003. During the civil war, in which 75,000 people were killed over 12 years, Washington contributed $1.5 million a day in military and economic aid to support the dictatorship’s fight against guerillas. [2]

MILITARY TRAINING

In fiscal year 2000, the United States distributed almost $50 million in military training funding through International Military Education and Training (IMET), with $9.8 million or 18% allocated to the Western Hemisphere. This funding trained 2,684 soldiers from Latin American countries.

Fast forward six years and into the midst of the war on terrorism; overall IMET funding worldwide has increased 75% to $86.7 million. Funding for military training in Latin America has increased at a proportional rate, to $13.6 million for 2006. This will fund training for 3,221 Latin American soldiers in everything from counterintelligence to helicopter repair.

Colombia tops the list for IMET, with $9.3 million in military training aid since 2000, an increase of almost 90% over six years. But other countries have received larger percentage increases over the same period. IMET funding to El Salvador and Nicaragua increased more than 200%, and their neighbor Panama received a 400% increase between 2000 and 2006.

At the same time that military aid and training are on the rise, U.S. economic aid to the region is dropping-- the 2006 foreign aid request foresees a sharp drop especially in development assistance, child survival and health programs. In 2002, in the United States budgeted $225 million for U.S. Agency for International Development programs in Latin America, including funds for child survival and health programs, disaster and agricultural assistance. The request for 2006 totals $125 million for the region- a decrease of more than 40%.

WEAPONS SALES TO LATIN AMERICA: Hundreds of Millions and Counting

In addition to aid programs such as FMF and IMET, the United States sells military hardware through arms sales programs such as Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS). The top 15 recipients of arms sales in Latin America took delivery of more than $3.5 billion in military hardware and weaponry between 2000 and 2003 (the last year for which full data is available).

Brazil topped the list with almost $720 million in arms from the United States.  The top five U.S. arms sales recipients ­ Brazil plus Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina-accounted for two thirds of all U.S. weapons sold in the region.

As a large and relatively wealthy country, Brazil can sustain a regular expenditure of over $100 million a year. Other countries maintain a more cyclical approach to armament. Instead of a steady increase or decrease in sales, countries go through phases to expand their military, thus boosting sales, and then spend a few years maintaining and servicing the existing equipment, causing a drop in sales. A clear example of this is Guyana, which in 2003 remarkably increased their arms expenditure over 5,000% from the previous three years, and Argentina, which spent 800% more in 2001 than in the two years that followed. 

Foreign Military Sales are conducted between the requesting government and the Pentagon. This process is usually reserved for larger orders and “package deals” that include delivery, training, spare parts, maintenance and even a warrantee on equipment, in addition to the military hardware. Most of the weaponry sold through FMS either comes from the Pentagon’s stockpile, or from supplies of military hardware restricted from market sale. Direct Commercial Sales, however, are conducted between the requesting government and the weapons manufacturing firms. As a rule, these transactions take less time because they are not subject to the same level of Congressional intervention or Pentagon red tape. But, sales are drawn from a more limited inventory because of the above-mentioned market sale restriction.  FMS and DCS are both subject to review from the State Department. 

MILITARY AID AND THE WAR ON DRUGS

In addition to military aid through Foreign Military Financing and International Military Education and Training, Latin American police and security forces are receiving billions in “counter-narcotics” aid.

In 2000, countries in Latin America received $1.19 billion in International Narcotics Control funding, with most of that-- $894 million -- going to Colombia under the beginning of President Clinton’s Plan Colombia. INC funding for Latin America (not including additional supplementals to Colombia) totaled $169 million between 2001 and 2005, and the State Department has requested $51 million for 2006.

The Andean Counter Drug Initiative is a separate program that includes considerable military and police aid. It is the umbrella under which “Plan Colombia” is supported and its stated goals are countering drug proliferation and stimulating economic development in the Andean region. Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela all receive some funding, but the lion’s share continues to go to Colombia.

U.S. counternarcotics funds go mainly to drug interdiction; programs to train and support national police and military forces; provision of communications and intelligence systems; support for the maintenance and operations aerial eradication aircraft; and improvement of infrastructure related to counternarcotics activities. Beginning in 2001 with $154 million in aid, the program has so far totaled more than $2.9 billion.

SOUTHERN COMMAND

U.S. Southern Command is the hub of the military’s presence in Latin America. Now based in Miami and headed by General Brantz Craddock, SOUTHCOM operates on a budget of $800 million a year and considers 19 countries in Central and South America and 13 in the Caribbean as its area of concern.

The Command’s size and budget, especially given the current military preoccupation with the Middle East, speaks to the United States’ enduring influence in the Western Hemisphere-- Washington’s backyard. The Southern Command is staffed by 1,470 people-- more than are tasked with the region by the Departments of State, Commerce, Treasury and Agriculture and the Joint Chiefs office and the Office of the Secretary of Defense combined.

UNGOVERNED SPACES: Al Qaeda in Latin America?

 According to its public documents, Southern Command is interested in improving “effective sovereignty” in Latin America’s “ungoverned spaces” like the “Triborder Area” between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, where national governments have little power, smuggling is rampant, and U.S. military experts allege that fundraising for Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah is taking place. Former SOUTHCOM head James Hill states that “branches of Middle East terrorist organizations conduct support activities in the Southern Command area of responsibility.” [3]

According to San Diego Union Tribune contributor Andres Oppenheimer, other “ungoverned spaces” include the “Tabatinga-Leticia corridor on the Brazil-Colombia border, the Lago Agrio area on Ecuador’s border with Colombia and the Darien jungle in Panama” where “Colombian drug traffickers, narco-terrorists and arms dealers roam about freely, and often control large territories.” [4]

But, many Latin America and security experts say that the terrorist threat there is overstated. Adam Isaacson, an analyst with the well-regarded Center on International Policy, says that with the exception of Colombia, “terrorists are rather scarce in Latin America, and terrorists who threaten U.S. citizens on U.S. soil are scarcer still…To portray terrorism as a region-wide threat, from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego, seems like a tough sell.”  The lack of a significant threat has done little to cool the rhetoric. Isaacson notes that “the word ‘terrorism’ appears as a justification for military aid in 16 of the Western Hemisphere country narratives in the State Department’s 2005 Congressional Presentation document for foreign aid programs.” [5]

RADICAL POPULISM: Latin America Tilting Left?

While fanning concerns about the growing role of Islamic fundamentalists in Latin America and keeping a wary eye on “ungoverned spaces,” what seems to concern Washington most is the leftward tilt of many Latin American countries.

In its 2004 Posture Statement, SOUTHCOM noted that “radical populism” is a major threat to stability in the region. At a briefing before the House Armed Services Committee in April 2004, then- SOUTHCOM Commander James Hill said that “terrorists throughout Latin America bomb, murder, kidnap, traffic drugs, transfer arms, launder money, smuggle humans.” [6]

He elaborated that there are both “traditional terrorists,” like the criminal gangs in Central America and paramilitary and guerilla groups in Colombia; and “emerging terrorists” like the “radical populists” who tap into “deep seated frustrations of the failure of democratic reforms to deliver expected results.” Radical populists apparently include Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, a former leader in the Bolivian coca growers’ union who now heads that country’s main opposition party. [7]

In March, CIA Director Porter Goss testified before the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. should paying greater attention to threats “in our own back yard.” He noted that presidential elections will be held in eight South American and Central American countries in 2006 and warned that “destabilization or a backslide away from democratic principles...would not be helpful to our interests and would be probably threatening to our security in the long run.” [8] As Tom Barry, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus, said, “Latin America is a continent that is drifting to the left, maybe out of U.S. control.” To many in Washington, that seems to be at least as scary as a robust terrorist network in their backyard. [9]

ON THE GROUND IN LATIN AMERICA: The U.S. Military in Paraguay and Elsewhere

 U.S. military bases, forward operating locations and radar stations like the ones listed on page five try to keep a low profile, but they are not as elusive as on-again, off-again military “training missions,” like those taking place in Paraguay this summer.

The United States military and the Armed Forces of Paraguay are conducting joint operations at a Paraguayan military base, including one that involves U.S. soldiers providing counterterrorism training to 65 Paraguayan air force officers.

While U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, have denied Washington’s interest in a permanent military base in Paraguay, the location of the exercises raise suspicions. The military base is 200 miles from the Bolivian border and almost as close to the country’s natural gas reserves and fresh water aquifers. It is also close enough to Brazil to be threatening. In late July, the Brazilian army launched military maneuvers along its border with Paraguay, parallel to the arrival of U.S. troops in Paraguay. According to InterPress Service, the United States has conducted 46 military operations in Paraguay since 2002. [10]

U.S. BASES IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

In addition to strengthening the militaries of Latin America through aid, training and equipment, the United States continues to stake out a claim on the use of Latin American territory for its own foreign policy objectives. Some of these bases are well-known (and in the case of the U.S. base at Guantanamo, notorious), while others- in Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador and Caribbean islands- are open secrets.

What follows is a list of what we know about the United States’ “military footprint” in the region (drawn largely from the work of the Center for International Policy). 

The term Forward Operating Location is used to describe U.S. arrangements with foreign nations for temporary access of military bases. But in some cases, “temporary” can mean decades, not months.

Follow the link to view the list of U.S. Military bases in Latin America, click here to view Tables on U.S. military aid to the region.

RESOURCES FOR MORE INFORMATION

Just the Facts: A Civilian’s Guide to U.S. Defense and Security Assistance, Center for International Policy and the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, ciponline.org/facts

U.S. Southern Command

U.S. Weapons at War 2005: Promoting Freedom or Fueling Conflict? A World Policy Institute Special Report, June 2005

September’s Shadow: Post- 9/11 U.S. Latin American Relations, Latin America Working Group, September 2004