U.S. Army Operations to Advance in Mexico<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/soldados-jeep.jpg?resize=720%2C480\")
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Guatemala<\/h3>\n
On the same day that the leaders of the Southern Command and Northern Command of the United States visited southern Mexico, they traveled to Guatemala, where they visited the Tec\u00fan Uman Inter-institutional Task Force, created in 2013 to combat drug trafficking, contraband, and other activities of organized crime in the Mexican border region. The unit is composed of more than 250 elite troops. The Southern Command visit is not the first one to take place in Guatemala. In fact, the first official visit took place on the occasion of the inauguration of the first Tec\u00fan Uman Task Force, in April 2013, as a demonstration of the continuing transnational security cooperation between Guatemala and the United States. General Frederick S. Rudesheim, who was the commanding officer of the Southern Command at the time, visited this Central American country to give a green light to the initiation of the training of the Tec\u00fan Uman Inter-Institutional Task Force, in San Marcos. A press bulletin issued before the inauguration announced that the U.S. embassy had donated 43 Jeep J8 tactical vehicles to the Ministry of National Defense, at a cost of 5.5 million dollars. This was supplemented by 9.2 million dollars in personal and organizational equipment, and 10.71 million dollars for the construction of an operations and logistical support base. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Inter-institutional Task Forces are intended to be positioned in the main border areas with Mexico, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. We are talking about around 7 Task Forces put together by the United States, with infrastructure, an institutional framework, and financing provided by that country. That is to say, the U.S. is behind these Task Forces,\u201d explained the investigative journalist Luis Solano. Solano is also the author of the book \u201cGuatemala Petr\u00f3leo y Miner\u00eda en las Entra\u00f1as del Poder.\u201d<\/cite><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/fuerzas-lobo-200x300.jpg?resize=200%2C300\")
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Although every member of the Task Force has access to specialized technology such as heat sensors and night-vision goggles with a range of 2 kilometers, used to carry out nighttime operations, as well as high-powered armament and tactical vehicles, activities related to the drug trade have not diminished. According to Solano, the Task Forces are contaminated by corrupt government structures that should have been cleaned up in the beginning, with the creation of the first Inter-institutional Task Forces. \u201cAfter the fall of the Otto P\u00e9rez Molina government and all of the structures around it, this fall from power was presented as a process of cleaning out key state institutions, but they are the same ones that make up these Task Forces. However much financing there might be, there hasn\u2019t been any decrease in drug trafficking,\u201d Solano said.<\/p>\n
A series of drug traffickers have been captured and extradited from Guatemala, but the high command of the army and police, who have been linked to organized crime haven\u2019t been touched, according to the journalist. \u201cYes, there have been many arrests and extraditions, but the structures themselves are untouched. In fact, they restructure themselves, and the result is internal struggles. What we see in Guatemala is a cyclical change in who\u2019s in command of the drug cartels. The state also has an important presence and a strong influence. There are even reports of the existence of a drug trafficking organization within the police force, which is in charge of seizing shipments and passing them to other cartels,\u201d explains Solano.<\/p>\n
Indeed, in 2014, a report apparently produced by intelligence and anti-drug agencies in the United States, and published by the newspaper elPeriodico<\/cite>, refers to these corrupt police as the \u201cCharola Cartel\u201d, and affirms that it emerged after various traffickers began to pay certain police officials for protection of their shipments of drugs in the 90s. According to the investigation, some police officers began to steal from these shipments (a practice known as \u201ctumbe” or \u201cknocking over\u201d) to sell them to other traffickers in the border zone between Guatemala and Mexico.<\/p>\nAlthough elPeriodico<\/cite> neither specified how it obtained the intelligence report, nor identified its authors or date, Luis Solano states that \u201cin the case of the army, this is who really controls drug traffic through the country. The drug trafficking organizations don\u2019t function without the support or at least a link \u2014 either through intelligence or counterintelligence \u2014 to the military or zone commanders. There is always a link. This isn\u2019t new, it\u2019s historic \u2014 in the \u201890s, there was an organization that called itself Los Capitanes. They arrested 10 Army captains who had control over the drug trade in that period, but not one of them was extradited, and none of the high command was detained.\u201d<\/p>\nThe creation of a Task Force in Mexico may or may not be the exception, in the sense that it may not be built on a corrupt structure, but that something similar to what happened in Guatemala might happen again \u2014 that it won\u2019t end the problem, but become part of it. What is for sure is that this elite group created by the United States closes the pincer movement of U.S. military presence in the region. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Task Forces, much like other programs implemented by the United States, have not met their stated objectives. On the contrary, the infrastructure mega-projects for the extraction of minerals, petroleum, water, and gas have increased violently, and together with drug trafficking have been a factor in the expulsion of people from their communities, as they see themselves being forced to migrate. Guatemala is still a key site for the passage of drugs toward Mexico and the United States \u2014 in all possible forms, by air, land, and sea. All the routes begin in Honduras and El Salvador, and end in Peten, Huehuetenango and San Marcos, which are the departments bordering Mexico. Here, there are an impressive number of crossing points, which have not changed in the least since the formation of the first Task Force which is supposedly present in the area,\u201d says Solano. <\/p>\n
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Honduras<\/h3>\n
Honduras is a country known for its great cultural wealth, as well as the common goods nature bestowed upon it, but also for the high rate at which defenders of the environment and indigenous rights are being killed. The case of Berta C\u00e1ceres, who was killed on March 2nd, 2016, turned the eyes of the world toward Honduras. More than 100 activists who had been defending their land against high-impact projects of national and transnational companies were murdered between 2010 and 2016, news that can be contrasted with the increasing militarization in the country, including a U.S. military presence that was created to establish \u201corder and peace.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Southern and Northern Command had also visited this country one day before their landing in southern Mexico. They were received by the ambassadors of Honduras and Brazil in the Soto Cano Air Base, located in Comayagua Valley, Honduras. This base houses 600 U.S. troops and 650 U.S. civilians and Hondurans, as Conjunta-Bravo Task Force. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt has more to do with the support of transnational companies that are sacking our country \u2014 the same ones who are seizing land for monoculture farming or their conservation politics.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cThe reasoning behind the visit\u201d, according to the official website of the Task Force, \u201cis to strengthen understandings between Northern Command and Southern Command around the security interests along the Mexico-Guatemala border to better fight crime.\u201d <\/p>\n
Even so, for the members of the Civil Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras, (COPINH), which was founded by C\u00e1ceres, the presence of the U.S. army on their lands \u201chas more to do with the support of transnational companies that are sacking our country \u2014 the same ones who are seizing land for monoculture farming or their conservation politics,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ednez, Community Coordinator for COPINH and a member of the Lenka indigenous group. <\/p>\n
The heavy blow that members of this group suffered upon losing one of the main figures in their movement has forced them to move forward with even more determination, all while considering the high costs that this could have. \u201cIt has been this way since before and during the coup d\u2019\u00e9tat. Members of COPINH have been spied on. At home, I\u2019ve received numerous anonymous death threats. Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez (president of Honduras) is one of the individuals who has great investments in the country, and he\u2019s the one who is handing our country over to U.S. and European transnationals on a silver platter. 35% of the national territory is subject to concessions. And this is why he\u2019s strengthening the military \u2014 for example, the military police has been trained by the United States,\u201d says Jos\u00e9 Martinez, speaking to Avispa Media. <\/p>\n
The visits of both Commands in Central America are meant to strengthen the proposals that were launched by Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez since he assumed power following the coup d\u2019\u00e9tat in Honduras, including the creation of a multinational force that would be able to combat drug trafficking throughout Central America, although it seems that the proposal isn\u2019t this president\u2019s own idea, as Central American countries have more or less simultaneously created their own Task Forces, with the support of the United States based on the same policies around the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism. <\/p>\n
In 2014, the president of Honduras announced the Maya-Chort\u00ed task force\u2019s activities on the border between Honduras and Guatemala. \u201cWe are establishing a high-level group with Guatemala as well as with the United States. We are working with a high-level group in Mexico on security, and the work with them is already in process. At the same time, we are about to begin working with Panama and Nicaragua, and we\u2019ve developed an excellent security relationship with both of them.\u201d These were the words of the commander during the inauguration of the Task Force. <\/p>\n
In Honduras, aside from the Conjunta-Bravo Task Force, there is also the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-South. The commander here, after a series of complaints by diverse NGOs and civil society organizations, assures us that it is not violating the sovereignty of his country. \u201cI want to make something clear. Palmerola (the Soto Cano Air Base) is Honduran territory. Palmerola is a Honduran military base, and doesn\u2019t belong to anyone else, so let there be no doubt, here or elsewhere, that this is Honduran territory,\u201d stated Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez in April 2015. <\/p>\n
Dr. Adrienne Pine, anthropologist and professor at the American University, revealed in December 2012 that the Soto Cano Air Base was used during the military coup that took place in 2009 during the government of Manuel Celaya. \u201cThe United States always says the same thing, that this isn\u2019t our base, that it\u2019s a Honduran base and we\u2019re invited to be there. We know that this is a lie.\u201d The professor, together with her colleague, the anthropologist David Vine of the American University, has identified \u201c13 bases or installations within Honduras that have been constructed or financed by the United States: Soto Cano, Caratasca, Gunaja, La Venta, Mocoron, El Aguacate, three kinds of advanced operating bases in Puerto Castillo that have been for operations in Iraq, Puerto Lempira, La Brea in Rio Claro, Naco, a training area in Tamara, and Zamorano, which is a rifle range used for training.\u201d <\/p>\n
When we asked Jos\u00e9 Martinez, a Lenka indigenous person, about his thoughts on the presence of the U.S. military in his country, he responded without hesitation and with a great sense of confidence: \u201cAs our Zapatista brothers say, this is definitively a war against the indigenous people that they weren\u2019t yet able to wipe out. The presence of the United States in Honduras is geo-strategic position, because it seeks to ensure that companies can finish sacking our peoples through the Meso-American Integration and Development Project, but they\u2019re also building more bases because they want to attack other similar processes elsewhere in Central America. If we don\u2019t stop these projects, in the span of 30 years the earth will end up killed, because these projects are murderous. This is why Lenka territory is being militarized,\u201d said the COPHIN member. <\/p>\n
Martinez has lived a long time, and has a great wisdom and understanding of his people and his organization. He knows that his life might be taken away at any moment, but he doesn\u2019t feel any fear for himself. He fears more for his comrades: other members of his organization, some of whom are very young, in their twenties. \u201cWe are in the eye of the hurricane, in terms of the transnational corporations, and the government is just following guidelines set by the United States, the European Union, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. But we have to struggle, with our knowledge and our indigenous wisdom, because this is a war of extermination. Because for the United States, we indigenous people represent a threat to capitalism. We are its enemies because we don\u2019t believe in its development discourse. Its development is responsible for the devastating climate change that our mother earth is suffering at this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Northern Command (NORTHCOM) is responsible for the internal defense of the United States, and covers Alaska, Canada, Mexico, and parts of the Caribbean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[317,321],"tags":[],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/us-soldiers.jpg?fit=1020%2C681&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elenemigocomun.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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