A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report accuses Venezuela’s security forces of carrying out operations with the Colombian guerrilla group National Liberation Army (ELN), and of causing “a dramatic increase in violence in the first months of 2022” in the border departments of Arauca, in Colombia, and Apure, in Venezuela. The [ … ]
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Caribbean Countries to Strengthen Measures Against Illegal Fishing
Member countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will strengthen the region’s response to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing through coordinated actions at both the national and regional levels. Such was the outcome of a meeting of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) and the Caribbean Community Implementation Agency for [ … ]
Chilean Police Derails El Tren de Aragua Operations
Chile’s Investigative Police (PDI) dismantled an arm of the transnational criminal organization El Tren de Aragua, originally from Venezuela, which has been terrorizing South America with homicides, kidnappings, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, and extortion, among other crimes. Operation Clandestino, which extends to different cities in the north and center [ … ]
Chile Takes Part in US Mountain Course
Chilean Army Captain Gustavo Schwerter, commander of the 8th Mountain Detachment Tucapel’s Andean Company, traveled on March 29, 2022 to the frozen North to participate in the Basic Military Mountaineering Course in Alaska. The U.S. Army’s Northern Warfare Training Center (NWTC) conducts the combat training course in cold mountain regions. [ … ]
Seminar Analyzes Human Rights and Operational Law in Colombia
A man advances with a machete toward a Colombian service member who during a patrol finds an illegal coca leaf plantation. A member of the LGBTQ community refuses to be searched by a uniformed male soldier. An indigenous man returns from a hunt to find his wife and child surrounded [ … ]
Russia’s Tools for Disinformation and Propaganda in Latin America
RT en Español is a Spanish-language subscription-based television channel of the Russian-based RT network, formally known as Russia Today. RT en Español was launched in 2009 and is also known as Actualidad RT, and now accounts for over 18 million followers on Facebook and 3.5 million on Twitter. Sputnik is [ … ]
US, Colombian Senior Noncommissioned Officers Conduct PISAJ 16 Engagement
FORT BENNING, Georgia – Senior noncommissioned officers (NCOs) from U.S. Army South, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico gathered at Fort Benning, Georgia, to strengthen partnerships during the 16th iteration of the Programa Integral para Sub-Oficiales de Alta Jerarquía or PISAJ taking place April 25 to May 6. This semi-annual, military-to-military engagement [ … ]
US Trains Dominican Unit in Counterterrorism
U.S. Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM) 7th Special Forces Group is training the Special Counterterrorism Command Unit (UCT) of the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Defense (MIDE), the MIDE said in a statement. The objective of the training is to “raise the level of readiness and response of its members to any crisis,” [ … ]
Sandinista Regime Weakens University Autonomy in Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s National Assembly, dominated by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, approved reforms on March 31, 2022 that give the regime control over everything from administrative positions to academic programs in universities, Reuters reported. The reform to the General Law of Education and the Law of Autonomy of Higher Education Institutions [ … ]
Women, Peace, and Security: ‘A Core Principle to Making Our Armed Forces More Ready, More Resilient, and More Effective’
Gender integration in the armed and security forces in the fields of education, recruitment, and development was among the topics of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Seminar, organized by U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and the Chilean Joint Peacekeeping Operations Center (CECOPAC) in Santiago, Chile, April 27-29. [caption id="attachment_70439" align="alignright" [ … ]
Chile: Authorities Discover Marijuana Plantations
Chilean authorities have discovered numerous marijuana plantations in the mountainous regions of central Chile. In the first two months of the year, authorities seized 82,906 plants and 1.2 tons of processed drugs, the Chilean Investigative Police (PDI) said in a March 11 report on Plan Cannabis 2022. The findings indicate [ … ]
Brazil and US Dismantle Ghost Gun Manufacturing Group
A Brazilian Federal Police (PF) operation, with the support of the Office of the Attorney General and the Homeland Security Investigations Agency of the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, dismantled a gang accused of operating an international ghost gun trafficking scheme. Authorities arrested three people in Brazil and three others were [ … ]