GALLERY - Dialogo forum Breaking News From South America the Caribbean

Joint Task Force-Bravo partnered with Honduran Ministry of Health and Honduran Military personnel to provide medical services to more than 500 Cuesta de la Virgen community members during a Medical Readiness Training Exercise (MEDRETE), on May 6.
Four guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN) were killed, and another one was captured during an armed confrontation that took place in a rural area of the department of Arauca, bordering Venezuela, the Colombian Army reported on May 15.
The Colombian National Police Office for Citizen Security has created an email address to send videos and photographs showing criminal activity, such as the sale of drugs and theft against people, households, and commercial premises.
Authorities in Ecuador have thwarted a major cocaine producing and smuggling network that had links to Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, government officials said.
On May 14, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the inclusion of Mexican national Alfredo Andrade Parra on the list of Foreign Narcotics Kingpins pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) for his significant role in international narcotics trafficking and fo...
Five guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and a police officer were killed during armed confrontations and attacks in different regions of Colombia, just before the peace talks between this insurgency and the national government resumed in Havana, authorities reported...
Aircraft from the Brazilian and Paraguayan Air Forces operated between May 6 – 10, at the PARBRA III binational military exercise, providing training on rules and procedures to strengthen the surveillance of airspace in the border region. During the exercise, controllers and pilots of both countr...
The Boston Marathon attacks had major repercussions on Brazilian authorities, increasing the safety concern, particularly because of the large events that the country will host beginning in June with the World Youth Day, and in following years, when millions of tourists from different nationaliti...
Almost 18 months after launch, “Operation Martillo” (Hammer”) has proven to be a big hit (no pun intended) if you ask the personnel involved in this huge effort to counter transnational organized crime in the waters of the Caribbean. Among these countries is Belize, which has been a key player wh...
Aureliano Cano Flores, one of Mexico’s notorious Gulf Cartel leaders, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for smuggling marijuana and cocaine into the United States, the Public Prosecutor reported on May 13.
On May 1st, the Brazilian Modern Pentathlon Military Team won the British Army’s Modern Pentathlon International Competition, in Sandhurst, England. It is a competition recognized by the International Military Sports Council (CISM) which gathered athletes from Europe and South America.
U.S. drone technologies are on display at an international defense technology exhibition in Lima, taking place from May 15-19. A total of 90 companies from 25 countries are participating.
The alleged Colombian drug trafficker Giraldo de Jesús Escalante Villegas, alias ‘Escalante’ and leader of the gang ‘Los Urabeños’, was arrested on May 10 in western Venezuela, Néstor Reverol, head of the National Anti-Drug Office (ONA), reported.
A factory that produced one thousand improvised explosive devices (IED) per month to be used by the narco-terrorist organization Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in terrorist attacks and mine planting, was seized in the rural municipality of Suárez in the department of Cauca, on May 10.
The United States announced that slight increases in military cooperation for México and Central América would take place in the fiscal year 2014. Honduras will be the Central American country to obtain the most assistance, with $4.5 million, compared to the $3.5 million granted in 2013.
Colombia’s longstanding conflict against FARC terrorists is beginning to look less like an all-out military conflict and more like a government crackdown on organized crime.
After his participation at the Central American Security Conference (CENTSEC 2013) in Panama City, on April 18, Army General Avilés Castillo met with Diálogo to discuss the vast exchange of cooperation and information between his country and the other nations in the region, as well as of the grea...
The Colombian Army reported on May 9 that 5,000 antipersonnel mines from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were seized and destroyed by in a rural area of Caquetá department.
Organized criminals killed at least 1,000 bus drivers, cabbies, truckers and other transportation workers in Guatemala between 2006 and 2012, according to the country’s Coordinadora Nacional de Transporte (CNT) — making this line of work one of the most dangerous occupations in Guatemala today.
The go-fast boat moved swiftly through the Pacific waters just off Panama City, but it was quickly spotted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials aboard an aircraft that had been tracking the suspicious vessel.
Seeing the need for an exercise that would allow U.S. Air Force rescue units to test and improve the full range of their capabilities, in 2006, Brett Hartnett, then an Air Force rescue pilot, created Angel Thunder. Seven years later, Hartnett, now a civilian contractor based at Davis-Monthan U.S....
On May 8, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos praised the country’s Army for killing a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is currently in peace talks with the Colombian government in Cuba.
The Mexican government is planning to introduce its first gendarmerie during the national festivities in September, in order to counter the high violence rates that derive from drug trafficking, according to Carlos Humberto Toledo, General Inspector of the National Commission of Public Security.
The Salvadoran Air Force (FAS) will acquire a fleet of second-hand Chilean Cessna A-37 fighters, ruling out, at least temporarily, the newer Brazilian light attack fighter Super Tucano, the most novel and optimal operating aircraft in terms of investment per flight hour.
The night is pitch-black in New Mexico. At 13,000 feet, the desert’s cold winds sharpen the senses and give you goose bumps. The Colombian jungle is a very different scenario: hot and humid, like a sauna.
On May 7, Ecuadorean authorities seized 457 kg of cocaine, which possibly belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel, during an operation where they arrested four Mexican nationals.
On May 7, units of Colombia’s National Navy captured alias ‘Gorgojo’, head of the terrorism support network belonging to the FARC’s 48th Front in the subdivision of Puerto Ospina, Putumayo.
General Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz, who joined the reserve in December of 2012, will now return to the Army at age 60. After 44 years of dedication to the Land Forces, which included a period of time as Force Commander of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), General Santos Cruz w...
On April 2, at a White House event, U.S. President Barack Obama unveiled a bold new research initiative designed to revolutionize the understanding of the human brain. As part of this initiative, DARPA intends to invest roughly $50 million in 2014 with the goal of understanding the dynamic functi...
“The Dominican Republic shares borders with Europe,” Admiral Sigfrido Pared Pérez, Minister of the Caribbean country’s Armed Forces, says figuratively to explain the enormous security challenge that the coming and going of five million tourists visiting the island each year from the Old Continent...
About 50 senior officers of the Honduran Police, including director Juan Carlos “el Tigre” Bonilla, will undergo counter drug and polygraph tests on May 6, during an institutional purging campaign, caused by alleged organized crime infiltration, official sources stated.
Explosives and weapons were seized by the Ecuadorean Military during two operations conducted in different areas of the country, the Armed Forces Joint Command reported on May 7. The materials were presumably destined for Colombian insurgent groups.
Civil Affairs officers from U.S. Southern Command and Special Operations Command South facilitated a Colombian-led Civil Affairs Subject Matter Expert Exchange (SMEE) with Guatemalan Civil Affairs (CA) counterparts in Guatemala, from April 23-25 to develop a strategy to increase Guatemala’s Civil...

Diálogo is a professional military magazine published quarterly by the Commander of the United States Southern Command as an international forum for military personnel in Latin America.