As part of a police reform to correct patterns of violation of civil rights by the Uniformed Cauldron Lopez seeks to regain the credibility that the body has lost in recent years to promote closer relations with the community.
The change of direction and seems to have gained currency among agents: Last week, on his own initiative, two officers of the Division of Highways handed fines accompanied by positive messages and sweets. "That Puerto Rico is transformed into the land that you want to see your kids grow up, full of opportunities and abundance is our commitment," read the message distributed during Parent's Day.
More than supplementary to ingratiate himself with the public programs, the Assistant Superintendent dedicated to the integration with the community will have a primary role in seeking to prevent crime in the long term. The unit will have 31 new agents, whose salaries are funded through federal grants.
Among the first steps taken by the Superintendent upon taking office in April this year, has been instruct commanders area for a census of how many there are neighborhood councils in the region, and what is the participation in communities. Upon completion of the census, the regional commanders must submit a plan to turn the boards in the communities where they are nonexistent, and increase the number of members.
The Coordinator of the program, the agent José Rivera Carballo said that among the achievements of the tips is creating new barracks, minimizing points by recovering drug vacant spaces, more patrols and better communication to warn of suspicious vehicles and criminal actions. According to official data, 5,700 are 325 councils and councilors. The goal is to strengthen and increase participation to 7,000 councilors.
To do this, the attendance of the monthly regional meeting with the presidents of the councils commanders made compulsory by order of the Superintendent. During the meetings should ensure that commanders seals have been meeting with the community, and that their concerns have been attending.
"As part of the reform is to bring the police priority communities," said Colonel Leovigild Vázquez, commander of the San Juan.
"We will transform it to be a community police, and gain the confidence that maybe we have lost," he added.
Cauldron insisted, meanwhile, that the move is a logical solution: "If the police do not know the problems that the community is not going to be able to solve."
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Your job as a federal police monitor has no expiration date Because short term, as Acknowledged, "will take time" the task of reforming the police force of Puerto Rico.
Since being confirmed as technical advisor Police enforcement has been in. Both constant Meetings with the hierarchy of that body to the minority groups, as students and members of the LGBT community. Indicates That It Also soon will Meet With Representatives of the mayors and mental health and education, in the search for consensus Regarding the route to be taken by the Police of Puerto Rico to meet the needs of Citizens.
Beyond the role of this body in Maintaining order and fight crime, Claudio agents That states must have the Ability to Understand That the Responsibility lies with them To provide safer streets as a direct service to the population.
He sees his role as an intermediary. Discard Immediately go over your work Superintendent Jose Caldero. Beyond meetings, evaluate-Corresponds agent performance through quantitative and qualitative surveys.
"It's a critical time, but it is the right time. 'M Committed to this task That does not say it is difficult, if not elaborate. Difficult Is that it can not be done. Issued is going to take time," I said .
The confidence with Which I've Assumed the position comes from experience. Claudio has an EXTENSIVE background as Director of Counterterrorism at the Pentagon, Interagency Security Coordinator in Washington DC and senior leader in the U.S. Army.
Although there Have Been by questions of civil rights activists Because of his background as a soldier, Claudio says the experience I've Gained in the field of human and constitutional rights will serve as a basis in Their Efforts to Ensure federal compliance agreement. 've stressed That the advice provided to the Government of El Salvador as a prelude to the Peace Accords, que led the demobilization of the National Guard by the massive human rights of Violation. 've Also worked in the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as Chief of Police Operations .
"Everything was done in a humane Manner," dispatched moments before sitting down to eat rice and beans with his family.
Problems in the Police Argues to lack of training and direction, little understanding of human rights and lack of progressive assimilation Involved force. All this will be met by a new curricula of the Police Academy, que was developed by Colonel withdrawal, as Michelle Hernandez Fraley well as working Directly With the Reform Committee.
"Tough love is against Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking. But You have skill and sanity When you struggle With the community. That is very different. The features to serve the community are different from address crime, "I Explained.
Their interaction With the press has-been, however I, reduced to 30 days Because of the consent agreement with the Federal Government. The Justice Secretary Cesar Miranda, Justified This Order porque Could harm the case before the Court is Brought without disclosing inside information and who has gone through the test.
Claudio's vision acerca how the police is Perhaps Should be a self-description: "educated, energetic, and professional," Said This newspaper.
"I left a high-ranking job, but my heart, sentiment, passion and desire is to help in Puerto Rico."
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Last October, in a private ceremony held at a stately mansion on the campus of the California Institute of Technology, the Aerospace Historical Society awarded the reclusive, 78-year-old CEO of General Atomics, Neal Blue, with the prestigious Von Karman Wings Award, a sort of Nobel Prize in the field, for “pioneering novel applications" of military drones.
For Blue, whose life reads like a thriller of private jets, oil profits and secret sorties to the Nicaraguan jungle, and whose company makes military drones with names like Predator and Reaper, the award capped the dominance of profits from drone manufacturing for his company and for the US drone industry at large.
That boomtime of drones – a decade-long celebration of war technology – was all largely fueled by the US military’s appetite for stealth and surveillance. Now the US military is backing off, and the drone industry is starting to look elsewhere to profits – even to some of the United States' deep-pocketed, warmongering adversaries.
For drone manufacturers, it doesn't seem to matter where the profits come from, as long as they keep rolling in. Dominated by four major US companies – Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Atomics and Lockheed Martin – the US drone-making sector is expected to reach a market value of $82bn by 2022, according to internal PowerPoint slides provided to the Guardian by a senior analyst at the leading defense and security agency IHS Jane’s.
The thorny thing is: those billions of dollars in profits are likely to be coming from some unsavory quarters.
The US market for drones is shrinking because the biggest buyer – the US government – is dropping its purchases because of budget pressures and the end of large-scale wars in Afghanistan.
To respond to market pressures, the largest four private US drone manufacturers are now actively courting foreign buyers for business, said the analyst, who requested anonymity for this article in order to speak candidly on issues related to agency clients.
“The United States has been using drones as a weapon of warfare for a decade and it was only a matter of time before other nation-states were going to do the same,” says University of Utah law professor Amos Guiora, an international law expert on drone warfare.
“Right now, there is no policy anywhere in the world to stop drones from getting into the hands of anyone who wants them, so the possibilities for profits are endless,” Guiora says. “It’s essentially become a sort of wild west.’”
The majority of the growth in drone buyers will come from the Asia-Pacific Region, according to IHS Jane's. China, India and Japan lead the pack, with Japan expected to expand its now virtually non-existent military drone program by roughly 600% in the coming decade.
US security analysts say the expected moves to large-scale investments in military drones are a natural phenomenon given the geopolitical and economic rivalries in Asia, which are expected to only intensify as Beijing and Tokyo aggressively pursue their interests in the South China Sea.
The capitalist center of gravity is shifting on drones. The huge profits companies can make in the coming decade in the production and sale of drones are all coming from abroad. Any regulations put into place here in the United States or at the international level will be fighting the tide of profits.
“The market dictates where you sell. It’s clearly not containable,” said Trevor Timm, co-founder and executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation who has written extensively on drones. “You can look at who wants them and who has them. And as the country that has the most, who are we to change the rules of the game?”
Not that the international community is likely to act. There is no established international convention at the United Nations to regulate armed predator drones – just one reason that critics say there is a high probability that drones will end up in the hands of rogue states and problematic actors.
This is what happens when your biggest market shrinks, and with it, your profits.
“The growing competition that these suppliers have is the issue, the world market is evolving and the US is under pressure. It’s got a reducing home market that will reach a low point in 2016 and in order to maintain the supply base, they [suppliers] need to look outward,” said the analyst at IHS Jane’s. “Russia and China are projected to invest significant amounts in research and development, which will account for large parts of those sales.”
The International Institute for Strategic Studies identifies only 11 countries – the US, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, the UK, Russia, China, India, Iran and Israel – who currently possess armed military drones.
The United States operates the most sophisticated predator drone fleet in the world, but the huge market advantage that American-made predator drones have enjoyed for over a decade will be significantly reduced in the coming years, according to the IHS Jane’s analyst.
“Russia and China’s capabilities are quickly developing. By the end of the decade, if certainly not before, we have intel that shows they’ll have the potential to develop the capability to produce a predator drone on par with American standards,” said the analyst.
Despite the cutbacks on orders for drone production, there is still considerable money to be made for America’s top defense contractors. One such lucrative military drone program is the MQ-9 Reaper system, made by General Atomics.
The MQ-9 Reaper is an armed, multi-mission, remotely piloted aircraft that has completed missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Because of its capabilities to reach over 300 mph and its pinpoint accuracy, it is known within Washington as the crown jewel of the government’s drone fleet. The US air force currently owns 104 of these aircraft, which has cost US taxpayers nearly $6bn since production began in October 2007, according to public records. The program is slated to end in 2018.
After several attempts to reach General Atomics, company representatives refused to comment for this article.
One way General Atomics and its competitors could substantially increase these billion-dollar profits in the coming years is if the US State Department relaxes its current restrictions on arms exports, said the analyst. Under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, operated by the State Department’s Directorate of Trade Controls, armed military drones are not approved for exports.
“The pace and development of the market is going to have to be absolutely tied to these ITAR rules and regulations,” said the analyst. “It’s not absolutely clear how these regulations will evolve.”
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It’s called the Transit Zone: a 6,000,000+ square mile area with two primary paths. One goes through Mexico and the southwestern U.S., and the other goes through the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico.
As the U.S. war on drugs becomes more successful at the southern border, the Caribbean path becomes more appealing to drug cartels.
One of the consequences of this change has been startlingly high levels of drug-related violence in Puerto Rico.
The U.S. Coast Guard is in the forefront of efforts to disrupt the flow of drugs through the Carribean to the United States, and in the forefront of efforts to reduce drug-related violence in Puerto Rico.
However, a new report from Government Accountability Office reveals that the Coast Guard has not been meeting its goals for protection in this area.
The report, requested by Congressional representatives, seeks to answer these questions:
- What were the trends in the Coast Guard’s deployments of resources to the transit zone for drug interdiction operations during fiscal years 2009 through 2013 and to what extent did the Coast Guard meet its deployment and mission performance targets during this time period?
- What actions has the Coast Guard taken to combat illicit drug smuggling into Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands during fiscal years 2009 through 2013 and what have been the trends in vessel and aircraft deployments during this time period?
In other words, what has the Coast Guard been doing to protect U.S. territories - and, relatedly, the rest of the country - and thus lessen the impact of the drug trade?
The report repeats what is now common knowledge: Puerto Rico is an appealing portal for drug smugglers because travelers from Puerto Rico to the mainland do not have to go through Customs on arrival.
The Coast Guard patrols the area with ships and helicopters, stopping vessels suspected of smuggling drugs, in efforts to make it more difficult to use Puerto Rico as a way station for drug traffic from South America to the U.S. The Coast Guard also supplies other vessels, such as Navy ships, with specially-trained personnel to disrupt the drug trade when opportunities arise during their normal operations.
In 2009-2012, the Coast Guard met about 80% of its deployment goals for Puerto Rico. In 2013, with sequestration, their activity was severely limited.
The report suggests that increasing difficulty in keeping legacy (i.e., outdated) vessels in operation is the main reason for the failure to meet the goals. This doesn’t explain why the Coast Guard got less than halfway to meeting its goal for specialized personnel on other vessels, but budget restrictions particularly during the 2013 sequestration is offered as the explanation for this aspect of the failure.
The report also points out the increasing number of disasters, including earthquakes and oil spills, to which the Coast Guard must respond.
Nonetheless, the Coast Guard has nearly tripled its efforts in and around Puerto Rico recently, largely as a part of Operation Unified Resolve.
Rep. Pierluisi suggests that pressure from himself and other legislators has been instrumental in increasing the Coast Guard’s Commitment to Puerto Rico in recent years.
The report does not contain recommendations, but the Resident Commissioner shared his conclusions: “The lesson of the report is clear. The Coast Guard did not have the proper resources in place in Puerto Rico in the past, now it is doing much more in this regard, but these efforts must be sustained and enhanced as we move forward.”
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One of the sons of Caballeros Templarios drug cartel boss Servando Gomez Martinez was arrested in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, officials said.
Huber Gomez Patiño was arrested in the city of Arteaga on Saturday, the Government Secretariat, Defense Secretariat, Navy Secretariat and Attorney General's Office said in a joint statement.
The 22-year-old suspect tried to flee after spotting federal law enforcement agents and was captured, federal officials said.
Gomez Patiño, who was armed, told the officers he was Gomez Martinez's son and threatened to have them killed if they did not release him, the federal agencies said.
The suspect faces firearms and drug charges, officials said, adding that he was turned over to federal prosecutors.
Servando Gomez Martinez took over the Caballeros Templarios cartel's leadership earlier this year.
Federal security forces killed the cartel's two top leaders, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez and Enrique Plancarte Solis, in February and March, respectively.
Moreno and other members of the Familia Michoacana gang formed the Caballeros Templarios organization after he was reported killed by the government in 2010.
The Caballeros Templarios cartel, which deals in both synthetic and natural drugs, commits murders, stages kidnappings and runs extortion rackets that target business owners and transport companies in Michoacan.
The cartel uses Michoacan's 270 kilometers (168 miles) of coastline to smuggle chemical drug precursors for the production of synthetic drugs into Mexico.
The federal government is offering a reward of 30 million pesos (about $2.3 million) for information leading to Gomez Martinez's arrest.
State officials, meanwhile, said Jose Manuel Chacon, a hitman on the cartel's payroll, was arrested in the upscale Chapultepec district of Morelia, the capital of Michoacan. EFE
