Latin American armed forces have a wide array of missions, from defense and security to humanitarian asistance/disaster relief (HA/DR), to United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKOs). However, there is one mission that has gained importance in recent years: environmental protection. The heightened risks of climate change have made governments in the Americas more aware of environmental protection and have assigned many Latin American militaries to the mission. This article examines the activities of the Peruvian armed forces to protect the environment of the Andean and Amazonian nation.
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Patrick Paterson's monograph, Training Surrogate Forces in International Humanitarian Law: Lessons from Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, and Iraq, leverages the author’s vast experience in Latin American history to examine how US Special Operations Forces (USSOF) train surrogate forces. He argues that it is necessary to employ United States Special Operations Command's (USSOCOM) indirect approach to grow and build partnership capacity through foreign internal defense (FID) and to find a balance with international humanitarian law (IHL). Paterson also examines the legal issues and restrictions on training and equipping foreign forces and the impact of these exchanges with our partners. His research methodology includes extensive interviews and incorporates a historical case study approach, examining FID efforts in Peru, Colombia, and El Salvador for lessons learned, and then compares and contrasts USSOF train and equip efforts in Iraq.
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For a special report on the Commission, the Perry Center Publications Editor-in-Chief Patrick Paterson met with Professor Richard Wilson, Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the Washington College of Law, to discuss the most important cases or reports in the history of the Commission. Professor Wilson, a frequent lecturer at the Perry Center, is a longtime observer of the Commission and Court, where he and his students have presented more than 30 cases. Of the thousands of cases and reports of the Commission, Professor Wilson selected a few that he thought were especially important or influential.
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Terrorism has not ended in Peru, it has mutated, because remnants of the Shining Path, the terrorist organization that caused so much damage to the country, have become, according to the latest social studies, a gang at the service of drug trafficking, who still bleed the country of the Incas. Operating clandestinely, the fear that they still produce in places lacking the presence of the State (mostly entrenched in the rugged geography of the Peruvian jungle) is due to their use of guerrilla techniques and asymmetric combat to beat the forces of order and State institutions, which try to prevent their new modus operandi. During the previous government (2006-2010), they became aware of the threat to governance that terrorism represents, and for this reason they established strategic policies focused on the restructuring of the ways to face the serious problems that have been originating, giving priority to terrorist actions in the Apurimac and Ene river valleys, located in the southern part of the country, where the greatest violence is concentrated, adding to the purely military strategies others that allow the development of the area and the presence of the State, However, in practice, it left aside another area where there are still men who have taken up arms and who, hiding behind their socialist claims, protect the drug cartels in the upper Huallaga River basin. Therefore, it is necessary to develop effective, concrete, quantifiable policies similar to those of the southern area in order to support the police and State institutions that counteract this threat in this part of the country, which is the final objective of this paper.
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Latin America continues to be a breeding ground for violent groups, as exemplified by the rise of drug cartels in Mexico and narcoterrorist organizations such as the Colombian FARC and the Peruvian Shining Path. A question that has not yet been properly addressed, however, is whether there is the possibility that ideologically oriented violent groups, like the Paraguayan EPP or the Mexican EPR, will rise again. This article provides a general review of the security situation in the region, focusing on violent armed groups and discussing to what extent they may have a political ideology.
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