Category — Police

Mara Salvatrucha gang members arrested by Honduran special police. (Photo: Reuters)

Several challenges will be posed to a transitional government once Castroism fades from existence (elements will certainly remain) and a semblance of democracy emerges. Organized crime will be one of them, particularly in the streets of Havana and other cities throughout the island, perpetrated by gangs.

The lessons learned (from strategy and tactics to combat) of the current gang and organized crime phenomena evolving in Central America and Mexico proves invaluable to a future transitional government in how to confront these internal security issues.

Dr. Max Manwaring (Professor of Military Strategy at the U.S. Army War College) has written an article titled: “Sovereignty Under Seige: Gangs and Other Criminal Organizations in Central America and Mexico” published in the Spanish edition of Air and Space Power Journal addressing the current security challenges posed by gangs and organized crime in the Americas.

He also wrote at the end of 2007: “A Contemporary Challenge to State Sovereignty: Gangs and Other Illicit Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) in Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Jamaica, and Brazil“ published by the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College that is worth a read.

Manwaring points out in his excellent article, Sovereignty Under Seige:

Another kind of war within the context of a “clash of civilizations” is being waged in various parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and everywhere else around the world today. Some of the main protagonists are those who have come to be designated as first-, second-, and third-generation street gangs, as well as the more traditional Trans-National Criminal Organizations (TCOs) such as Mafia families, Illegal Drug Traffickers, Warlords, Terrorists, Insurgents, etc. In this different (“new”) kind of war, TCOs are not sending conventional military units across national borders or building an industrial capability in an attempt to “filch some province” from some country. These non-state actors are more interested in commercial profit and controlling territory (turf) to allow maximum freedom of movement and action. In addition to drug smuggling, these criminal organizations are known to have expanded their activities—among others–to smuggling people, body parts, weapons, and cars; along with associated intimidation, murder, kidnapping, and robbery; money laundering; home and community invasion; and other lucrative societal destabilization activities. That freedom of action within countries and across national frontiers ensures commercial market share and revenues, as well as secure bases for market expansion. The corrosive effects of the associated criminal violence and gratuitous cruelty of that freedom of movement also generates a different kind of clash of civilizations. It is not a clash of Western and Eastern cultures. Rather, it is a clash of values. It is a clash of values between Liberal Democracy and criminal anarchy.

What makes all of this into a new type of war is that the national security and sovereignty of affected countries is being impinged every day, and TCO’s illicit commercial motives are, in fact, becoming an ominous political agenda. Rather than trying to depose a government in a major stroke (golpe or coup) or a prolonged revolutionary war, as some insurgents have done, gangs and other TCOs more subtly take control of turf one street or neighborhood at a time (coup d’ street), or one individual, business, or government office at a time. Thus, whether a gang or another TCO is specifically a criminal or insurgent type organization is irrelevant. The putative objective of all these illegal entities—the common denominator that directly links gangs, other TCOs, and insurgents– is to control people, territory, and government to ensure their own specific ends. That is a good definition of insurgency, a serious political agenda, and a clash of controlling values.

[H/T: SWJ]

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Via BBC:

The number of political prisoners in Cuba has fallen in the past six months, according to a new report by the island’s main human rights group.

[...]

But the report also says that the authorities are continuing to take a tough line against dissidents.

It says that any change in the human rights situation remains “unlikely”.

There are an estimated 219 political prisoners currently held in Cuban jails, 15 fewer than in January this year.

But according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCHRNR) this does not represent a fundamental change in the treatment of dissidents under Raul Castro.

Instead, the latest half yearly report by this illegal but tolerated organisation points to a change in tactics, with a marked increase in what it calls arbitrary systematic detentions.

Instead of high profile arrests and imprisonment, opponents are picked up by police, often prior to planned meetings or rallies.

They are then released without charge, usually within 24 hours.

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Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) publishes different data sets concerning the military sector, overall security environment, human rights situation and governance in all together 170 countries.

The following data set identifies the danger of disproportionate military capacities impairing development. Checks whether an unproportionately high share of military expenditure, military personnel and arms imports may have a negative effect upon both human and economic development (Criteria 8 of the EU Code of Conduct).

If rated as “red”, there is a clear danger that this may be indeed the case. Cuba rated “green”, not critical.

Military data is based upon information obtained from both the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) as well as from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.

Most notable in this data set is Cuba’s military expenditure, military personnel per inhabitants and number of military and paramilitary forces personnel.

“Cuba’s regular army, twenty years ago, numbered 145,000 men, most of them conscripted privates who served for three years. They were backed up by at least 110,000 ready reserves, who were trained forty-five days or more annually.  The best estimates point to military expenditures of $1.8 billion or more in 1985. This military outlay amounted to more than 10 percent of the government budget and exceeded eight percent of the island’s gross domestic product.”

Military Capacity

Military expenditure 2007 in Million USD (constant 2005)

1,416,000

Military expenditure as share of GDP 2007

not available

Number of personnel in military and paramilitary forces 2006

76,000

Military and paramilitary forces per 1.000 inhabitants

6.76

Military and paramilitary forces per physician

1.14

Imports of major conventional weapons, 2002-2006, in Million USD

not available

Share of weapons imports in total imports

not available

Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2007; SIPRI Yearbook 2008; IISS Military Balance 2007

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Cuban media reports 704 new police officers from diverse specialties have graduated from the Tarará Martyrs School of the National Revolutionary Police. They have been assigned to patrol the capital, Havana.

[Photo: Granma]

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Groups such as Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) have used nonviolent means to voice their opposition to the Cuban government, which has been met with the use of force by police forces.

International Security, a quarterly journal published by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, has an article in its Summer issue addressing the success of civil resistance titled, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Non-Violent Conflict.” The article was written by Maria Stephan (Former Research Fellow, International Security Program/Intrastate Conflict Program)and Erica Chenoweth (Research Fellow, International Security Program), both from Harvard.

A summary of analysis follows:

The historical record indicates that nonviolent campaigns have been more successful than armed campaigns in achieving ultimate goals in political struggles, even when used against similar opponents and in the face of repression. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to win legitimacy, attract widespread domestic and international support, neutralize the opponent’s security forces, and compel loyalty shifts among erstwhile opponent supporters than are armed campaigns, which enjoin the active support of a relatively small number of people, offer the opponent a justification for violent counterattacks, and are less likely to prompt loyalty shifts and defections. An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims. These dynamics are further explored in case studies of resistance campaigns in Southeast Asia that have featured periods of both violent and nonviolent resistance.

[Photo: Reuters]

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Via AFP:

At least eight members of Cuba’s opposition have been taken into custody in a police sweep targeting dozens of government opponents across the Communist island, dissidents here said Thursday.

Leading dissident Martha Beatriz Roque said as many as 40 government opponents have been targeted in the regime’s roundup.

While there were “eight confirmed,” she said, several dissidents in Cuba’s provinces outside of the capital city Havana were unaccounted for. “We don’t know where they are,” she said, fearing they too have been detained.

Elizardo Sanchez, president of an illegal Cuban human right commission, told AFP that among those arrested were Francisco Chaviano, Rene Montes de Oca, Leonardo Bruzon, Julio Cesar Lopez y Emilio Leyva.

“These are arbitrary detentions, and we hope they will be of a short duration,” Sanchez said.

Opposition leader Vladimiro Roca called the sweep “a giant act of repression throughout the entire country,” which targeted above all else dissidents in Havana “because we were planning to hold a meeting here and they did not give permission” for it.

The crackdown comes just days after the European Union decided to formally lift sanctions against Cuba imposed following a 2003 dissident crackdown, although, for its part, the United States administration has kept its sanctions in place and expressed disappointment at the EU decision.

The crackdown in Cuba, if confirmed, suggests that there may be limits to the amount of change the new government under Fidel Castro’s brother Raul, is willing to tolerate, despite ushering in recent widespread reforms.

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