Chavez, CTD?

When I worked as an emergency medical technician many years ago, we used a short-hand lingo to describe the status of victims. We used "CTD" to describe someone who didn't have long to live. Their lives, like the water in a bathtub soon to disappear down the pipes, was "circling the drain."

With all the recent protests and such in Venezuela, I've fielded a few questions here and there concerning Chavez's chances for political survival. I have to say, they still look pretty good. Students continue to protest, and they have solid grievances, from the closure of television stations to energy and water shortages, and violence. In Caracas alone, some 34 people died from 29 to 31 January.

And on 1 February, a group of former Chavez supporters published their call for him to resign. This group, known as the Polo Consitutional "urged" the ruler to resign.

Yet on the same day, Chavez opened government coffers once again to solve his problems. He has announced a US$1 billion fund for investments in Venezuela's energy infrastructure, announcing a raft of projects designed to fill the gap between the country's energy demand and stagnant supplies, focused mostly on the Guri damn hydroelectric plant.

Ahead of the September legislative elections, we've seen Chavez stumble but he has a long way to go before he falls. The recent currency devaluation doubled the amount of money he has available to spend inside Venezuela. And as the price for oil remains relatively high, Chavez continues to collect foreign exchange. We're watching a long list of items, however, to see where and when support for the embattled president will begin to deteriorate. At the top of the list is food and water. Inflation, security, and jobs round out the top four.

Chavez has his work cut out for him, but there's plenty of time before the elections. As one local journalist said, Chavez will shoot for 70% control of the National Assembly, but even if he wins 60% he'll still be happy and solidly in control of the country's legislative agenda and output.

Iran and Venezuela: The 2009 Dosado

This Southern Pulse Intel Brief, dated 24 September 2009, is republished here with permission from the Southern Pulse editors.

--

In a recent interview with conservative French newspaper Le Fiargo, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez thanked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the technology transfer required to develop a nuclear energy program in Venezuela. The agreement, Chavez claims, was signed in early September, and serves as a capstone for the tightening of relations between the two countries over the course of 2009.

While visiting Ahmadinejad on his eighth trip to Iran during the week of 5 September, Chavez reportedly followed up on 186 separate agreements formed between the two countries since 2005. A 10-year strategic alliance was proposed, as well as joint plans for the construction of a oil refinery in Syria with an expected capacity of processing 150,000 barrels of oil a day.

Venezuela has also agreed to sell Iran 20,000 barrels of gasoline a day beginning in October 2009, but Chavez declined to disclose the duration of the US$800 million agreement. To further support Iran’s energy needs, PDVSA has also agreed to establish operations at Iran’s South Pars 12 gas field, with estimated reserves of some 12.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas

Iran has reciprocated with the announcement that its government will validate educational qualifications and academic titles awarded in 47 Venezuelan universities.

The September meeting comes only five months after Chavez’s last visit to Tehran in the first week of April, when he travelled with a selected group of Venezuelan businessmen. They were on hand to witness the inauguration of a joint Venezuelan-Iranian development bank, reportedly capitalized with US$200 million, with half to be provided by each government. Iranian Kourahs Parvizian will become the president of the bank, while Venezuelan Nelson Ortega will become the vice president.

While in Tehran, Chavez also called into a Venezuela Television show, Contragolpe, to describe plans for a joint Venezuelan-Iranian mining company to formalize five years of mining operations shared with Iran in Venezuela. Chavez noted that the new mining company would focus on six minerals and some precious stones, including diamonds.

Later in April, the Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Majjar landed in Caracas for a short trip to sign a series of “unspecified agreements.” Presumably, these agreements facilitated the 29 April signature of a memorandum of understanding between the Venezuelan and Iranian armed forces.

Within the remaining months of 2009, Venezuela and Iran are likely to expand on their peaceful nuclear initiative, one that France has already flagged as a violation of UN Security Council resolution 1737.

TFMS book trailer no. 2

Brazil: A fiscal paradise?

This is just a quick post to share some interesting information on Brazil and money laundering.

The OECD is pressuring Brazil to sign on to its Global Forum on Transparency and Information Exchange regime, branded as a "Partnership Against Corruption."

For most of his presidency, Lula has spoken out against so-called "fiscal paradise" countries around the world, where financial controls and laws governing money movement are both relaxed enough to invite would-be money laundering organizations to take residence.

Brazil has done it's fair share of anti-money laundering efforts, but it appears that in the eyes of the OECD, Brazil is still just another money laundering hub in Latin America. I would imagine that Brazil has opted not to join the OECD's club simply because under Lula's leadership, the country still has some affinity for the non-aligned movement, which would preclude any membership in such "aligned" organizations.

And perhaps more to the point, Brazil doesn't like to join a group that will tell it what to do, unless, of course, Brazil is at the head of the table, such as UNASUR.

This is for the Mara Salvatrucha - book trailer no. 1

Terrorist Communications Cell in Brazil?

I'm in DC now for a few meetings, and I'm talking quite a bit about Brazil. It seems there is a lack of information and understanding about Brazil's future here in the nation's capital.

When I speak to US federal agents - and other security analysts - about Brazil's past, especially regarding their interest in working with Brazil in the arena of terrorist financing and related security matters, the usual response is simple.

Brazil doesn't play ball because they don't think terrorism is a Brazilian problem.

There is one reason why this type of pre-programmed response has begun to change on the Brazilian side.

Brazil is becoming more important on the global stage. As the so-called "sleeping giant" begins to make waves beyond South America, Brasilia will be expected to assist Washington and other countries with relevant security-related efforts, and this stretches well beyond UNASUR and Ameripol into the realm of terrorist financing, organized criminal activity out of Eastern Europe, and, most recently, terrorist communication networks.

Recently the Brazilian Federal Police, working with the FBI, captured an alleged "important leader" of the Al Qaeda organization. According to some reports, this man had a "high degree" of operational responsibility in the sector of communications.

This man, now named Khaled Hussein Ali, comes from the Bekaa Valley region of Lebanon and had worked in the IT sector in Sao Paulo. He has lived in Brazil for some 20 years.

His location in Sao Paulo is significant because heretofore, the focus of terrorist activity in Brazil, was in the south, bundled around Ciudad del Este, the focal point of the region's most famous tri-border area.

Khaled was arrested due to his association with the Jihad Media Battalion, which is known as a "very radical" Islamic group. He was arrested for racism on the 26th of April, then released some time later by a Brazilian federal judge who saw no reason to keep the guy under lock and key. The Brazilian government has denied that Khaled is part of Al Qaeda (predictably), but it has revoked Khaled's Lebanese passport.

As far as I know, there have been wire taps on Khaled's phones, and the Brazilian media continues to follow this case pretty closely. As I learn more, I'll post it here.

South Am Security Paradigm Continues Shifting

Not two days after I published a piece with the ISN on how we're seeing a paradigm shift on security in South America, Brazil follows up on the Obama/Lula meeting and takes the lead on suggesting that the MercoSur countries - Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay - develop a sub-regional police force modeled after Interpol.

Here is the story in Portuguese (thanks Mr. H. for sending this along).

The premise of the piece is that Brazil will present at the next MercoSur meeting a proposal to create "Mercopol" - a security organization that brings together the federal police units of each member country.

A few reactions:

First, it seems that Brazil is testing the geopolitical waters. By floating this idea within a forum that it closely controls (albeit with some bickering from Argentina), Brazil can get a sense of how the region as a whole would cozy up to the idea of a South American police force formed under UNASUR, as Lula mentioned in his meeting with Obama.

Second, this proposal will give all countries involved in MercoSur, even the observers and the associate members - thinking Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador here - a chance to approve or disapprove, again within a forum that is not too heavy in terms of political liability on the regional level.

Third, if Mercopol were to be formed, I suspect there would be a heightened opposition to Venezuela's full entry into MercoSur (still held up in the Brazilian Congress much to Chavez's chagrin).

Finally, this is yet another example of Brazil taking a leadership role. The UNASUR Defense Council (Brazil's idea) has already stated that it will not place drug trafficking and organized crime on its agenda because these are not military problems. And this is absolutely correct. What we need, however, is a federal police complement to UNASUR's Defense Council.

Mercopol could easily morph into such an organization and perhaps feed into Ameripol, which to date has done little more than meet and talk. Bottom line, Brazil is making moves to become South America's head cop. We will see if some of the region's top cop countries - Colombia and Chile specifically - fall in line behind Mercopol.

Mexico's Narco Counterculture

In Mexico, you can go from nothing to a hired hit man in as little as three months, according to Mexico's Secretariat of Public Security (SSP). The hired gun position within most DTOs is the third up the ladder. Informant and recruiter comes first.

The analysis describes the three month process of becoming a narco hit man as one that has become something of a narco counterculture, one that presents "work in the gang as synonymous with success."

Minimum wage in Mexico is about 700 pesos a week (roughly US$65). Working as only an informant can bring as much as US$140 to US350 a week. The job requires that informants simply report on what moves in their area of responsibility. If invited to move up the ladder, young assassins can earn as much as US$700 a week, ten times more than they likely earned with a legitimate job.

Mexico as a Hollow State

The good people at the National Journal agreed to post a discussion I offered on why Mexico is a hollow state, and why the country will never become a failed state.

See the post here.

Zetas as a Criminal Brand Name

On 11 March, I published a piece on how the Zetas are evolving.

One of the most common evolutions is the use of the name "Los Zetas" as a criminal brand.

Armed thugs across Mexico have begun calling themselves Zetas simply to provoke fear in their victims - a useful tool for control when attacking a small village to search for and then carry away targets for ransom kidnapping.

The Houston Chronicle published a piece on 22 March that underlines exactly what I was talking about.

Here is an excerpt:

Solis said he and other townspeople suspect those who raided Cuauhtémoc in early February, kidnapping the 23-year-old son of a bean-and-grain trader, are simply “bad characters from the area who have just taken the Zeta name.”

Fear of the Zetas borders on hysteria in this corner of Durango state, residents and officials agreed. Village boys playing with toy trucks have taken to shouting “here come the Zetas” when staging chases, Solis said.

When a rumor started March 10 in a town nearby that scores of Zetas were planning to attack, stores in the area closed, classes were canceled and people fled.

“A psychosis prevails across the whole region,” said Isidro Aguilar, the police chief of Guadalupe Victoria, a market town 25 miles from Cuauhtemoc, who otherwise denied that the area faces a crime plague. “There are people who are taking advantage of it.”

Hiding guns in a massive load...

In Tucson, I recently spoke with some of the men who work the trenches, fighting gun smuggling south, from Arizona to Mexico. On the road from Phoenix to Tucson, I pass three separate trucks that exemplified what they said was a nightmare for Border Patrol and a boon for smugglers. Feats of engineering and twine-supported balance and load capacity that astounds . Many BP agents will not stop these guys because it would take their whole shift just to unload and search these vehicles. Meanwhile, smugglers know that they can wrap up a few guns at the bottom, in the middle, and pass on through...

I took this photo just a few hours ago, southbound on I-10, headed to Tucson - about 4 hours away from the border.

Headed to the Border

I'm headed tonight to the US/Mx. border in Arizona to investigate tunnel technology, Border Patrol search and rescue, Project 28, death in the desert, open air gun shows, and drug addiction.

Blogging will be limited until 21 March.

For now, I'll share a photo I received today: one of the largest weapons seizures in Mexican history.

Escalation and IEDs in Mexico

Rocket and grenade launchers, high powered machine guns, .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifles, and fragmentation grenades have become common on the lists of items seized by the Mexican army in 2009.

A number of analysts in both Mexico and the United States have noted a trend that shows an escalation in violence driven by the use of more powerful weapons and explosives, especially grenades. Fragmentation grenades are easy to come by in Guatemala, and it's nothing to smuggle them north. Just last week, the AFI stopped two men in a truck near Veracruz (read Zetas affiliation), and found in a hidden compartment 66 frag grenades, allegedly purchased from an arms dealer in Guatemala.

On 19 February, an "armed commando" stole between 20 and 30 kilos of explosives from a mining company in Durango. Five days before that heist, another 121 kilos of explosives and 230 blasting caps were stolen from a separate mining company. Some of the explosives from the first theft were recovered, but most of it remains somewhere in the Mexican black market.

"There's only one reason why someone would steal that much explosive," an agent with the ATF told me last week, raising an important question: when will we begin to see improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Mexico?

FBI "capacity building" in Chiapas

For me, the term "capacity building" has always held a certain air of UN-esque newspeak for, "let's spend some tax payers' money, teach some people in developing countries a thing or two, and then leave before they get the picture."

And I normally wouldn't match the FBI with capacity building, especially in the last place anyone seems to do anything constructive: Chiapas, Mexico.

For a long time, I've talked about why Mexico needs help controlling its southern border, where most of the immigrants from Central America, and the rest of the world, pass through before entering into the maze of violence, corruption, and possible desert death that Mexico has become for illegal immigrants.

Chiapas is the state where many immigrants first meet the harsh realities of making it to El Norte, and by a long margin, Chiapas is one of the poorest and most often forgotten states in Mexico when it comes to federal attention.

Enter the FBI.

On 3 March, FBI agents began a week long "capacity building" class for investigators who work with the Chiapas state Attorney General's office. The class, "Criminal Intelligence Analysis", will offer instruction on developing informants, interview and interrogation techniques, threat evaluation, organized criminal profiling, the intelligence process (not sure what that means), and phone call analysis - among other items on a long list of things to cover in just one week.

What strikes me as the most interesting aspect of this class is that here we have a perfect example of police training other police. There is no military involvement here. In a region that is littered with bodies due to using the military in the role traditionally defined for police forces, Mexico stands out as a country where there is a deeply entrenched need for security sector reform and a professionalization of the police forces.

This FBI class takes a small but exemplary step in that direction. Bravo.

What was lost with Reyes' Death - one year ago

Colombia's weekly news magazine, La Semana, recently published an interesting and insightful piece about the five things the FARC lost with Raul Reyes' death.

At the time of his death, one year ago on 1 March, 2008, Reyes was considered the FARC's number two leader; he commanded a considerable amount of respect around the world as a moderate, well spoken, and deeply committed member of the FARC's leadership council.

What was lost:

1. The FARC lost Reyes' international contacts. Reyes was close with a number of older members of Germany's Stasi - secret police from the Communist days in Eastern Germany. Through many of these contacts, Reyes was able to procure arms through the black market.

He was also the FARC's spokesman with many international organizations, and was responsible for rallying international support for the FARC's position when it came to negotiating with the Colombian government.

2. Many of the organizations that kept in touch with the FARC through Reyes were exposed when the Colombian government reviewed files recovered from his computer. These groups were subsequently forced to retreat from their supportive role, further isolating the FARC on the international stage, especially in Europe.

3. Also through a thorough review of Reyes' files, the Colombian government learned how the FARC communicated on both a domestic and international level. The guerrilla organization's communications protocols, what the leaders knew, and what the leaders didn't know was also disclosed. Without this knowledge, the deception used to rescue Ingrid Betancourt and the US captives, among others, would not have been possible.

4. The information on Reyes' computer also alerted the Colombian diplomatic corps to the linkages between the FARC and a long list of illegal organizations around the world. With these proven ties, Colombia's international efforts to stymie the FARC's support within illegal realms, especially the black market, have received a boost.

5. Colombia attacked Reyes in a FARC camp located within Ecuador, disrespecting that country's sovereignty while maintaining that if the Ecuadorians had been in on the operation, then the FARC would have found out. Colombia's relations with Ecuador have been severely damaged well into the future with a poor prognosis for any improvement, at least during Correa's mandate.

One year after Reyes' death, on 1 March, 2009, we still find two Andean countries with no diplomatic ties. But the FARC has been forever crippled.

If you ask Uribe if it was worth it, he would not hesitate to tell you yes.

Guinea Bissau: President Assassinated

Mexico's El Universal reported (from an EFE news clip) this morning that the president of Guinea Bissau was assassinated in an explosion on 1 March.

Guinea Bissau is a western African nation long plagued by the drug trade, corruption, and civil unrest. It's difficult to pin down a specific actor in this assassination. But it's nearly certain that the country will now become - more than ever - an ideal spot for moving drugs from South America into Europe.

More on Guinea Bissau's role as a transit nation here.

Zetas Threaten President of Guatemala

The Guatemalan National Police made public on 1 March that Los Zetas have made a threat against the life of President Alvaro Colom.

Someone representing Los Zetas made the phone call to the police emergency line - 110 - on February 28.

The President's security has been doubled.

More on this news as events develop...

Juarez: Calderon's Big Bet

According to the Mexican government, nearly 8,000 soldiers will take on at least three mexican DTOs fighting for control of Juarez: Sinaloa, La Familia, and the Juarez Cartel.

As of this blog post, some 800 have already arrived, and the rest are on the way.

What a way to begin March: a month that could possibly be the bloodiest we've seen on record for Juarez.

This border city has registered the highest number of so-called "narco-executions" in the country, with 2,750 in the past 14 months.

Nearly 8,000 soldiers will be used to not only secure one city, but completely remove all presence of any drug trafficking organization from Juarez, said president Calderon. That's a big bet.

This is the first time he's poured this size of a force into one city. As we watch the fall out, I think it will be interesting to consider the outcome if Calderon does not succeed.

Borrowed from the idea of a failed state, the idea of a failed city could be one that has descended into anarchy, where most law abiding citizens leave, and those that remain are willing to work within a new system, full of criminals, vigilante gangs, the wretched, and run by one drug overlord.

This is a worst-case scenario. Best-case: Juarez becomes a city where the Mexican government tried and failed to exercise sovereignty within its own territory.

Unfortunately, the path to either conclusion above, or one where Calderon's bet pays off, and Juarez becomes a peaceful place, is one littered with bodies.

At some point, someone has to win. If it's not Calderon, then one DTO will have to triumph over the rest. And it's hard to see how three or more of these groups could come to some sort of time-share scheme for the plaza, or some sort of compromise. There's simply too much money at stake, and the nature of Mexican organized crime is that alliances never last as long as conflict.

If the Mexican military cannot save Juarez, we will watch as the various DTOs, vying for control, slowly and steadily rip the city apart, along the way rendering it ungovernable, insecure, and ultimately a black hole of death and violence just south of the US border.

Calderon has thrown down the gauntlet, making Juarez the new focus of his own personal War on Drugs.

On one hand, it is a very risky maneuver. And if he loses, he loses big. Mexican organized crime will have won one of the biggest battles to date in the war Calderon has waged since he entered office.

On the other hand, he's knocking on Obama's back door with the realities of violence in Mexico.

Calderon knows that bloodshed on the border will be a headline story for mainstream media in the US.

I can already see Lou Dobbs, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, O'Reily, and others invite a cadre of "experts" who will all weigh on on Calderon's big bet, and who will either admonish or support Obama for not getting more involved.

Calderon has repeatedly asked Washington for help. To date, his requests have been answered with some small results: the Merida Iniative, Project Reckoning, and Operation Xcellerator, to name a few. Obama is also slowly moving towards banning assault rifles again.

But even when we put all this together, it still is not enough.

How many more bodies will have to pile up before Washington realizes that Mexico can't do it alone? Calderon is determined to win, but if he loses, Obama will have no choice but to get involved and make bets of his own.

More Coke to EU

Poland's Internal Security Agency confiscated a ton of coke late last week. Along with EU organized criminal groups, members of an unnamed Colombian drug trafficking organization were also arrested.

Poland has been used as yet another gateway into Europe from Colombia and Venezuela. Apart from Project Reckoning, implemented by the DEA, I haven't seen any significant arrests of Latinos inside the EU over the past few years until today, and they're bummed.

Moving a ton of coke from Colombia to Poland is serious work - logistics, money, heavy lifting, and bribes. Money lost is not as valuable as time for these guys.

If the old rule stands - that the amount seized is roughly one third of the actual flow - then Poland is a serious player in the Colombia-EU coke trade.

Finally Serious about Militias in Rio de Janeiro

Earlier this week, the Rio de Janeiro state government created a specific group of lawyers to combat organized crime. This is a first. In the past, the judiciary in Rio has taken a back seat to the Military and Civil police, as well as the infamous Batalion of Special Operations, recently made popular by the move, Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad).

There will be five prosecutors assigned only to cases involving organized crime AND militias. This is an important point.

Militias in Rio de Janeiro have been around since 2000, but only recently have they received any attention from the state security apparatus. A inquiry committee last year found that at leat 225 people should be indicted for their involvement in the city's militia groups.

The Justice League is the largest and well known militia. It operates in western Rio, and like many of the other militias, these guys are well organized, pay a salary to all its members, and makes money mostly from extortion, calling it a "protection fee". Protection from the drug gangs, that is.

These guys also extort small business owners who operate in Rio's informal economy - mostly street vendors. They also sell illegal cable TV connections - TV a gato in Portuguese - and operate an illegal propane tank service. Many people in RIo use propane tanks to fire their stoves.

Militias control nearly 200 separate communities in Rio, and while many people don't like having them around, they can't complain. When the militias come into town, the drug trade is completely removed from the community. Militias were initially formed to operate outside the law when targeting drug traffickers in Rio.

This is part of the reason why the government took so long to target them head on. People down here consider that the militias are the lesser of two evils. But the development of a state level prosecution team to focus on organized crime and militias is a step in the right direction. The government should work to control these pockets of urban turf, whether they're owned by drug traffickers or militias.

It's refreshing to see that Rio is doing something... Finally...