Col. Keller gives a historical overview of U.S. foreign police training, where the “U.S. government is poorly prepared and lacks capacity.” However, as the author point out, such training of foreign police forces by the United States was successfully done through USAID from 1961 to 1974.
Keller describes the perception of policing in developing states:
In many societies of developing states, where local crime is on the increase, the local community members themselves may be skeptical of the value of community-based policing, preferring more-traditional authoritarian and repressive approaches to combating crime. (pg. 29)
And what is needed to develop an effective police force:
Developing an effective, local, community-based police depends more on the values and attitudes of the local police force than it does on the technical skills they possess. (pg. 29)
Perhaps lessons learned from successful training could be applied by the U.S. in stability operations in post-Castro Cuba if the island becomes a failed state during its transition to a democracy.
“We should work together to safeguard in a joint manner the security and interests of both nations,” said Zhou, member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, in a meeting with Army Corps General Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, Cuba’s Minister of the Interior.
According to Who’s Who in China’s Leadership, Zhou has experience in security and law enforcement. He was China’s Minister of Public Security from 2003 to 2007.
ACG Colomé Ibarra also met with Minister of State Security, Geng Huichang, as well as the Minister of Public Security, Meng Jianzhu.
Perhaps the article might be used as a blueprint for Cuban state security to head off their social order challenges.
With Spanish anti-riot equipment and Chinese advisement on security issues, the Castro regime, through its police/paramilitary forces, is well prepared to quell any destabilizing situation in the streets of Havana.
[Image: Chinese security forces in anti-riot gear. By China Elections & Governance.]
Yesterday, the Cuban National Revolutionary Police and state security agents arrested younger members of the opposition in the city of Holguin in Eastern Cuba. [Martí Noticias]
According to a report by Spain’s Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce on defense exports, anti-riot equipment was exported from Spain to Cuba in 2008—destined for the National Revolutionary Police and to be used for the public.
The anti-riot equipment, described in the report within articles related to defense materials, also falls under the category of chemical agents or biological toxins.
(Image: Madrid police officer in anti-riot gear. By Flickr – Oscar in the middle.)
One of the largest graduations of capital officers of the National Revolutionary Police took place yesterday in Tarará Martyrs Academy, where hundreds of officers with different specialties also graduated. Almost 600 of those hundreds belong to the City of Havana. 500 new students will begin a new course in September. [Granma]
Cuba’s repressive legal system has created a climate of fear among journalists, dissidents and activists, putting them at risk of arbitrary arrest and harassment by the authorities.
A Lady in White is being choked by a female member of the Cuban government's security forces in Havana. Image: AP
Police forcibly took some 30 women off the streets Wednesday as they marched in a protest led by the mother of a political prisoner who died in a hunger strike, an AFP journalist witnessed.
The “Ladies in White” were heckled by hundreds of government supporters as they marched through Havana with the mother of Orlando Zapata, who died in a prison hunger strike February 23.
Police moved in and female officers forced the dissidents into two buses and drove them to the home of group leader, Laura Pollan, where they were dropped off and allowed to go free, a member of the group told AFP.
“The Prosecutor and Municipal Tribunal, as well as the offices of the Department of Justice, continue to perform in peacetime. Except in a case where an exceptional situation is declared, tribunals and sector prosecutors will be activated, and special legislation will be applied under the principle of unique military jurisdiction.”
The above referenced quote comes from an informative article published last month by CubaNet entitled “Legislación especial,” which was written by independent journalist Odelín Alfonso Torna.
Torna alerts to the ramifications of information technology and high tech devices that Cubans now have access to (e.g. USB flash drives, mobile phones, iPods) whereby the Cuban government is loosing control of information. Even government employees are violating security regulations exposing confidential information that is being leaked and disseminated to the populace.
He warns of an unexpected special legislation for exceptional situations (e.g. foreign invasion and popular revolt) as Cubans are presently facing repression at its “highest magnitude.”
La Razón reports the Zapatero government has responded to a parliamentary question submitted by the Spanish Congress of Deputies admitting that the Cuban regime has turned the screws of political repression and persecution of “political prisoners”.
In the “last couple of months, Cuban authorities have developed a new pattern of political persecution, characterized by short arbitrary detentions and utilizing as an argument ‘pre-criminal social dangerousness’ for such actions that have affected several important persons.”
Cuba ended 2009 with slightly fewer political prisoners but continues to have the worst human rights in the Western Hemisphere with no improvement in sight, said the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
There were 201 dissidents behind bars, down from 208 at mid-year, but CCHRNR charged that the Cuban government had stepped up harassment of opponents with brief detentions and physical intimidation.
The independent commission said Cuba “continues to have the worst record on fundamental rights in the Western Hemisphere,” with nothing “to indicate the current leaders are inclined to initiate reforms.” (via Reuters)
The Lithuania collection at Hoover is a rare window into the KGB’s role in Soviet politics and society.
The Hoover Digest published an excellent article this month entitled “Agents of History” about a priceless historical collection of activities and crimes perpetrated by the KGB during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania.
Castro dies of natural causes under questionable circumstances. His brother Raul is still in control of the apparatus. An enormous funeral and wake is observed throughout the nation, but within days after the wake, Cubans begin to demonstrate openly against the post-Castro regime. Raul accelerates liberalizing policies and carefully consolidates preferential property rights for the Cuban Communist Party, including ownership of information systems and key foreign currency owners such as tourist hotels. This cynical abandonment of the revolution in favor of privileged survival is transparent to lower-ranking bureaucrats and outer-circle rivals. Violence breaks out between major institutions with historic grudges, and the competition is fueled as exile leaders and money are attracted to the fray. Leverage is soon applied to change migration, investment, banking and property ownership policies. Once this happens, the regime loses effective political control.
The above referenced quote is a scenario presented in a special issue of Military Review dedicated to Operations other than War published in January 1994.
It is estimated that up to one million people were killed during communism in Eastern Europe – but there is no clear figure for those imprisoned, persecuted or spied on.
The whole issue of what to do about the past – forget, forgive, confront – is a live and contentious one in countries like Poland, Romania and the former Czechoslovakia.
And as most formerly communist countries have started to open their secret police archives, ordinary people are beginning to get a sense of how far the state intruded into their private lives.
European affairs correspondent Oana Lungescu – one of many Romanians who was watched – investigates.
A demonstrator, second from right, is grabbed by unidentified men during a march organized by dissidents to commemorate the Human Rights Day in Havana. 20091210 (AP Photo)
Government supporters screaming insults and slogans broke up two tiny International Human Rights Day marches Thursday and chased away a British diplomat onlooker, pounding on his car as he drove away.
Hundreds of enraged Cubans confronted a march led by Yusnaimi Jorge, wife of Darcy Ferrer, a black physician and veteran dissident who had headed demonstrations every Dec. 10 but has been behind bars since this summer for buying black market cement.
“This street is Fidel’s,” the crowd yelled as a group of men in plainclothes, believed to be state security agents, ringed the demonstrators, eventually placing them in unmarked vehicles.
The pro-government crowd also pursued observer Chris Stimpson, second secretary of the British Embassy, shouting at him until he fled to his car, then ringing the vehicle and banging on it. He returned to his office without further incident.
Surveillance cameras with the pretext of traffic control will also be used to spy on the populace for suspicious activities. (Image: El Pais)
Fifty surveillance cameras have been placed in the most important streets of Havana, which are operated by the national police. The network of cameras should be increasing and contributing to the security of the populace, reports El País.
At least a dozen guards from the Canaleta maximum security prison (which houses some of Cuba’s most notable political prisoners) in the province of Ciego de Avila remain under arrest since early November under the accusation of corruption and drug trafficking in connection to prisoners.
“Security measures can be ordered to prevent the commission of crimes or as a result of their having been committed. In the first case they are called pre-criminal security measures; and in the second, post-criminal security measures.” Cuba Criminal Code, “Dangerousness” Law, Chap. III, Art. 76, Sec. 1
El País, Spain’s center-left daily, published an editorial today on repression in Cuba, referencing the “dangerousness” law of the Cuban criminal code that is reminiscent of Philip K. Dick’s futuristic short story The Minority Report, which describes Precrime, a system which punishes people with imprisonment for crimes they would have committed.
The report “shows how the Raúl Castro government has relied in particular on the Criminal Code offense of “dangerousness,” which allows authorities to imprison individuals before they have committed any crime, on the suspicion that they are likely to commit an offense in the future. This “dangerousness” provision is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts Cuba’s socialist norms.”
Here are segments of the executive summary:
In July 2006, Fidel Castro handed control of the Cuban government over to his brother Raúl Castro. As the new head of state, Raúl Castro inherited a system of abusive laws and institutions, as well as responsibility for hundreds of political prisoners arrested during his brother’s rule. Rather than dismantle this repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active. Scores of political prisoners arrested under Fidel Castro continue to languish in Cuba’s prisons. And Raúl Castro’s government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms.
Raúl Castro’s government has relied in particular on a provision of the Cuban Criminal Code that allows the state to imprison individuals before they have committed a crime, on the suspicion that they might commit an offense in the future. This “dangerousness” provision is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts socialist norms. The most Orwellian of Cuba’s laws, it captures the essence of the Cuban government’s repressive mindset, which views anyone who acts out of step with the government as a potential threat and thus worthy of punishment.
…
While this report documents a systematic pattern of repression, it does not intend to suggest that there are no outlets for dissent whatsoever in Cuba. The last three years have, for example, witnessed the emergence of an independent Cuban blogosphere, critical lyrics by musicians, and most recently a series of government-organized public meetings to reflect on Cuban socialism.
…
The Cuban government has for years refused to recognize the legitimacy of independent human rights monitoring and has adamantly refused to allow international monitors, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and international nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch, to visit the island and investigate human rights conditions. In researching this report, Human Rights Watch made repeated written requests to the Raúl Castro government for meetings with authorities and formal authorization to conduct a fact-finding mission to the island. As in the past, the Cuban government did not respond to any of our requests.
As a result, Human Rights Watch decided to conduct a fact-finding mission to Cuba without official permission in June and July 2009. During this trip, Human Rights Watch researchers conducted extensive interviews in seven of the island’s fourteen provinces. We also conducted numerous interviews via telephone from New York City. In total, we carried out more than 60 in-depth interviews with human rights defenders, journalists, former political prisoners, family members of current political prisoners, members of the clergy, trade unionists, and other Cuban citizens.
“Movies have often romanticized Communist revolutionaries—think Benicio Del Toro as Che. But a new action thriller, The Baader Meinhof Complex, counterpunches, exposing the violent psychosis that gripped the young militants of the Red Army Faction in 1970s West Germany,” writes Christopher Hitchens in last month’s Vanity Fair magazine.
Revolutionary National Police. Image: Miscelaneas de Cuba
Cuba’s National Police has made a public recruitment (an announcement made in Cuban state media) of men and women between the ages of 18-40 who posses adequate political and moral conditioning, and a love for investigating and risk, reported the Spanish news agency EFE last week.
The special operations unit of the National Police, which works in “discovery, prevention, and clarification of criminal and economic crimes via the use of operational secret methods and means,” is looking for candidates for their “operative officers” position.
With this open public call it looks likes the National Police is expanding its ranks to further surveil the Cuban populace as a means to control dissent since the bleak economic reality of the regime poses a sustainable threat to stability.
Cuban police have detained 100 dissidents this week in Cuba to avoid their participation in marches commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights according to an announcement made by the Cuban Commission of Human Rights – Comisi
Cuban police patrol cars stand along Havana Malecon seafront. Image: Getty/AFP
Carta de Cuba alerts that the Cuban capital is constantly surveilled by patrolling soldiers and police, whom traverse municipalities to impose order reports the independent press during the last couple of weeks. In the municipalities of San Miguel del Padr
Cuban police motorcyclists patrol the streets of Havana. Image: AFP/Getty
La Jornada (Mexico) reports Cuba’s black market “could place in jeopardy the revolution’s very existence,” whereby the national police has hardened its vigilance against the underground economy which could become a high priority mission, according to an official communique released Sunday.
“There is a war without barracks against illegalities and crime,” the unsigned communique published in the Havana weeklyTribuna.
Reported were raids executed in the last two months in the capital including operations against 100 factories, 60 shops and 200 clandestine warehouses.
The campaign started in September in the aftermath of the hurricanes including a system of searching passengers in police checkpoints throughout roadways.
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.
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. [ad#demo-advert]
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 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
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.
Cuban police violently broke up a dissidents’ meeting, leaving at least two people in need of medical treatment, opposition sources said Monday.
At least 30 people were detained briefly after a weekend raid on the home of well-known dissident Jorge Luis “Atunez” Garcia Perez in the central city of Placetas, opposition leader Martha Beatriz Roque said in a communique sent to journalists by fax.
Veteran dissident Elizardo Sanchez said he independently confirmed the details of the raid and that all who were detained were later released.
At least two people needed medical care, including one man who required a head X-ray, and were later sent home, said Sanchez, head of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
“This is the most violent police action we have seen in many months,” he said.
Next June, a group of Venezuelan police officers will travel to Cuba and Nicaragua to be trained in community police matters. Minister of Interior and Justice Ram
The U.S. Army War College‘s Strategic Studies Institute published last month a monograph authored by Colonel (Ret.) Dennis E Keller, entitled “U.S. Military Forces and Police Assistance in Stability Operations: The Least-Worst Option to Fill the U.S. Capacity Gap.” Col. Keller gives a historical overview of U.S. foreign police training, where the “U.S. government is poorly [...]
The Spanish Embassy’s Office for Economic & Commercial Affairs in Havana published an informative 118-page study earlier this year on the administrative structure of Cuban state enterprise groups. This study provides an outline of the Cuban economic system controlled by the state and a general understanding of how the Cuban enterprise system functions. (Image: Embajada de España—Oficina Económica y [...]
Juan Tamayo of El Nuevo Herald has a piece on the 50th anniversary of the Battle at Escambray (the last armed internal combat against the Castro dictatorship.) Fifty years ago, Rivera was one of up to 4,000 Cubans battling Castro’s brand new government in a little-known, but nasty guerrilla war that raged in parts of [...]
Police training in stability ops
8 September 2010 at 0009 in Commentary, Government, Havana, International Relations, Paramilitary, Police, Population, US by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d
The U.S. Army War College‘s Strategic Studies Institute published last month a monograph authored by Colonel (Ret.) Dennis E Keller, entitled “U.S. Military Forces and Police Assistance in Stability Operations: The Least-Worst Option to Fill the U.S. Capacity Gap.”
Col. Keller gives a historical overview of U.S. foreign police training, where the “U.S. government is poorly prepared and lacks capacity.” However, as the author point out, such training of foreign police forces by the United States was successfully done through USAID from 1961 to 1974.
Keller describes the perception of policing in developing states:
And what is needed to develop an effective police force:
Perhaps lessons learned from successful training could be applied by the U.S. in stability operations in post-Castro Cuba if the island becomes a failed state during its transition to a democracy.
Click here to read the rest of the monograph.
Tags: foreign police training, post-Castro, post-Castro Cuba, strategic studies institute, U.S. Army War College, U.S. foreign police training, USAID