[Marxism] Spreading "democracy" wherever he goes: Rumsfeld demands stronger role for Lat. Am. militaries

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Subject: Spreading "democracy" wherever he goes, Rumsfeld demands
stronger political role for Lat Am militaries
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1124-01.htm

Published on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 
by the Inter Press Service

U.S. Media Miss Rumsfeld's 'Dirty Wars' Talk

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - If three, five, or 10 years from now, Latin
America returns to the military dictatorships and ''dirty
wars'' of its all-too-recent past, analysts may point to
the past week's conference in Quito of the hemisphere's
defence ministers -- and particularly Pentagon chief Donald
Rumsfeld's role in it -- as a milestone in that journey.

If they did, however, their assessment would surely draw a
blank among the readers of U.S. newspapers or viewers of
its television. For the vast majority of them, the
conference was the equivalent of the proverbial tree
toppling unheard and unseen in some vast, unobserved
forest.

While the major media were filled with speculation about
Rumsfeld's future in President George W Bush's second term,
his contribution to the meeting was entirely ignored by the
electronic media and major newspapers with just a handful
of exceptions.

That was unfortunate because, in many ways, the Quito
meeting confirmed an evolution in U.S. policy that has been
underway since Bush declared his ''war on terrorism'' after
the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the
Pentagon itself. Indeed, the purpose of the gathering was
to erect a ''new architecture'' for continental security in
which the armed forces, in Washington's view, would play a
central role.

For almost two decades, the United States has urged Latin
American militaries to move away from the Cold War
''national-security'' doctrines that resulted in so many
abuses in the region. But last week Rumsfeld appeared to be
preaching the virtues of reviving such an approach, perhaps
under a new name, like ''national sovereignty''.

Indeed, in remarks to his fellow-defence ministers,
Rumsfeld even suggested that, given the challenges posed by
21st-century threats, it was time to re-think the
separation of the armed forces from the police -- a major
reform pursued by U.S. and Latin American human-rights
organisations as a way of asserting civilian control over
the military and reducing abuses.

''Since Sep. 11, 2001, we have had to conduct an essential
re-examination of the relationships between our military
and our law enforcement responsibilities in the U.S.'',
asserted Rumsfeld, who never let the phrase ''human
rights'' pass his lips. ''The complex challenges of this
new era and the asymmetric threats we face require that all
elements of state and society work together''.

Indeed, the Pentagon chief included under the rubric of
''enemies'' faced by the region's armed forces a number of
actors who normally would come under the jurisdiction of
the civilian authorities. ''Terrorists, drug traffickers,
hostage takers and criminal gangs form an anti-social
combination that increasingly seeks to destabilise civil
societies'', he declared, further blurring the line between
the roles of the military and the police.

And during the drafting of the final communiqué, Rumsfeld's
delegation resisted a Canadian move, backed by Brazil and
Chile, to balance its anti-terrorism provisions with
explicit references to international human rights and
humanitarian law, according to Gaston Chillier, an
Argentine lawyer from the Washington Office on Latin
America (WOLA) who observed the conference.

''They were essentially saying, 'terrorism is the priority
for the region, and international human rights law is not a
requirement in combating terrorism','' he told IPS. ''This
is exactly the wrong message in a region where militaries
used this philosophy during the dirty wars to commit gross
human rights violations''.

In another update of the national-security doctrine of the
1960s and 1970s, Rumsfeld also pushed for greater
co-operation among the region's militaries, particularly in
border regions where ''enemies often find shelter.''
''Strengthening sovereignty, and ensuring effective
sovereignty over our national territories must be a
fundamental goal'', he said. ''There is no one nation that
can meet these challenges by itself; it is simply not going
to be possible'', he added twice for emphasis.

Despite the obvious implications of Rumsfeld's remarks for
Latin America and the future of U.S.-Latin American
relations, however, the mainstream U.S. media did not see
fit to give them -- or the strong resistance to them on the
part of most of the defence secretary's Latin American
counterparts -- much attention.

Although the major wire services, Associated Press and
Reuters, carried some reports from Quito, only a few
newspapers published them, usually in a much-abbreviated
form.

The conference was ignored by the 'Washington Post' and
noted in a relatively brief item in the 'New York Times'
that focused on Rumsfeld's contention that routes used by
smugglers to move undocumented foreigners into the United
States could be used as easily by terrorist organisations.

Longer articles appeared only in 'The Miami Herald', the
'Denver Post', the 'Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal', the 'San
Jose Mercury News', and the 'Los Angeles Times'. But in
almost all of these accounts, Rumsfeld and senior officials
are virtually the only quoted sources, according to a
search of the Nexis-Lexis database.

Virtually the only instances when Latin American officials
were quoted were in relation to the badly lagging
deployment of troops to the Brazilian-led United Nations
peacekeeping operation in Haiti and to the willingness of
the region's military to co-operate more closely against
drug trafficking. Latin American troops make up by far the
largest component of the peacekeeping force in Haiti.

Of the newspapers that covered the conference, only the
'Miami Herald' stressed Rumsfeld's recommendations on
expanding the role of the military in dealing with the
region's security problems and quoted Jose Pampurro, the
Argentine defence minister, and his Brazilian counterpart,
Jose Alencar, on the subject.

An article published in both the Denver and Akron
newspapers was the only one that did not quote Rumsfeld at
length and that stressed that Latin Americans saw the
question of security in a much different light than the one
cast by the Pentagon chief.

Written by 'Denver Post' correspondent Bruce Finley and
entitled 'Latin America Wary of Calls for Help in
Anti-Terror Effort', it was also the only one that cited
non-governmental sources, including several people who had
participated in a rally near the conference site to call
attention to the plight of children in Latin America.

It also quoted retired Gen Rene Vargas, the former head of
Ecuador's military, as raising questions about U.S.
intentions in his country and the disconnect between U.S.
strategy and Latin American priorities.

''In Latin America, there are no terrorists -- only hunger
and unemployment and delinquents who turn to crime'', he
was quoted as saying. ''What are we going to do, hit you
with a banana?''

The same article quoted Brazil's Alencar as calling for
global disarmament, and insisting, ''the cause of terrorism
is not just fundamentalism, but misery and hunger''.

© Copyright 2004 IPS - Inter Press Service





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