Latin America
Related: About this forumWhat are U.S. Marines Doing in Peru?
What are U.S. Marines Doing in Peru?
Posted by: Lynette Yetter October 24, 2015
Theres a theory that when U.S. mainstream news starts running stories about a foreign country, its because the U.S. is planning on invading that country. Since Im a permanent resident of Bolivia, friends in the U.S. ask me whats going on in the Andes.
They tell me that Peru has been mentioned many times recently in the U.S. news. In just the last day or so a lot of articles about Peru were in the U.S. press. Heres a small sample: An article about food in Peru appeared in a Las Vegas newspaper. NPR reported on infant mortality in Peru. And the Washington Post ran a story about a corrupt Peruvian military official.
Friends ask me, is the U.S. preparing to invade Peru?
To try and answer their question I started asking around and keeping my eyes and ears open. At the Peoples World Conference on Climate Change, which was held October 10-12 in Tiquipaya, Bolivia, I heard a Peruvian delegate say how distressing it is having U.S. soldiers in Peru.
U.S. military in Peru was news to me, so I searched online for articles. I found that, yes indeed, the U.S. has sent over 3,000 Marines to Peru, and the Peruvian people are marching in protest.
More:
http://blogcritics.org/what-are-u-s-marines-doing-in-peru/
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)haikugal
(6,476 posts)I'd be concerned too...wtf?
The article reveals that security documents reviewed by Reuters show the armed forces think Movadef (the political arm of Shining Path) and leftist groups have stepped up protests to sow disorder as part of a common goal: vacating the presidency through a coup by the masses, like demonstrations that brought down leaders in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina over the last decade.
Will U.S. news soon be filled with stories comparing the Shining Path to Isis, as an excuse to wage war in the land of Machu Picchu?
Do the U.S. Marines in Peru have any connection to protecting the business interests of MMGs gigantic Las Bambas mine in Peru, to open in 2016 despite protests that left four dead and 16 seriously injured last month?
msongs
(67,194 posts)taxes. all that freedom crap is just baloney for the most part.
Euphoria
(448 posts)I wish you were wrong, but I know you are not.
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)Thanks.
Judi Lynn
(160,217 posts)Lotsa info. on the Internet[font size=6]S.[/font]
Here's one article I posted this year:
March 18, 2015
U. S. Interventions in Venezuela, Peru, and Paraguay
by W. T. Whitney
. . .
The U.S. military, for example, is implementing a scheme of collaboration with Peru. The Peruvian Congress passed enabling legislation in January and February. Some 3500 U. S. Marines will be in Peru for short or long periods during the coming year. Their purpose, according to an official Peruvian military source, is instructional. The first contingent of 58 U.S. troops arrived on February 1 and will stay for a year working in five districts. Two weeks later, 67 more marines arrived for a six-week stay. On September 1, 3200 soldiers will disembark from the amphibious assault vessel America. That ship visited Peru in September 2014.
On September 1-6, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington calls at Puerto Callao in Peru. The U. S. Fourth Fleet, reactivated in 2008 to support missions of the U. S. Southern Command, has operational control of both vessels.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/18/u-s-interventions-in-venezuela-peru-and-paraguay/
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US Troops in Peru's Coca Zone
Thu Feb 26, 2015
It has been making practically no headlines outside Peru, and hardly any within, but a force of US Marines has apparently been mobilized to the Andean countryspecifically to the conflicted coca-growing jungle region known as the VRAE, or Valley of the Apurímac and Ene Rivers. Peru's Congress quietly approved the deployment in a resolution Jan. 29. The first contingent of 58 soldiers arrived on Feb. 1, and a second of 67 troops on Feb. 15. They are to stay for a year on what is being called a "training" mission. A much larger contingent is to arrive in September, a total to 3,200 Marines, for a six-day joint exercise with Peruvian forces. (Defensa.com, Feb. 19)
A small Marine Corps "security cooperation team" returned to the US in late November following a six-week training mission in Villa Rica, a district in central Oxapampa province, Pasco regionan area apparently chosen because its high jungle terrain is similar to that of the VRAE. The mission was apparently to train Peruvian marines for operations in the VRAE, where remnant Shining Path guerillas are said to be working with local narco gangs. Gen. John Kelly, head of US Southern Command, visited the VRAE in September to discuss sharing counterinsurgency skills with Peruvian forces. In a Lima interview with Marine Corps Times, Kelly cited the example of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), long faced by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also used by the guerillas in the VRAE: "What a better way to do it than by joining the experiences our marines face in the VRAEM with what Marines experienced in their conflicts? By putting them together and exchanging those ideas, we increase our knowledge of the problem and find better ways to prevent this type of weapon."
But the deployment is meeting some protest in Peru. Alberto Adrianzen, the country's representative to the Andean Parliament, told TeleSUR the decision to accept the Marines "confirms that the Peruvian government is following a position of not looking for a South American mechanism for defense, which is what many nations propose, but a special relationship with the United States.
http://www.hightimes.com/read/us-troops-perus-coca-zone
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2015-01-05 | Military
Marines Prep Peruvians to Combat Insurgents, Drug Cartels
By Gina Harkins (As first appeared in Marine Corps Times)
The hard-fought combat lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are being used in the mountainous jungles of Peru, where U.S. Marines have been helping military forces battle insurgents and drug traffickers.
A small Marine Corps Forces South security cooperation team returned to the UnitedStates in late November following a six-week training mission in Villa Rica, a district in Perus central Oxapampa province. Its a mountainous area filled with dense jungle terrain, similar to that in the VRAEM a Peruvian region where multiple river valleys meet that remains a stronghold for a local insurgency group called the Shining Path. Peruvian Marines have an ongoing fight against the group, which has made a resurgence in recent years since theyve partnered with drug cartels in a country that is the top global producer of cocaine.
The Peruvians have turned to the U.S. Marines for counterinsurgency tips to fight these local threats. Adm. Luis De La Flor Rivero, the commandant of the Peruvian Marine Corps, told Marine Corps Times that combating the insurgency and cartels in the VRAEM was their No. 1 priority. Every six months, he deploys about 600 of his Marines there.
In a move similar to what U.S. Marines saw during the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, De La Flor Rivero said hes working to increase the size of his force from 3,500 to 6,000 Marines in order to boost his troops dwell time between deployments. As more Marines are sent to fight in the VRAEM, the training they conduct with the U.S. Marines is vital, he said.
More:
http://dialogo-americas.com/en_GB/articles/rmisa/features/2015/01/05/feature-02
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U.S. Military Presence in Latin America Increasing
July 1, 2015 COHA
Jim Baer, Peru, U.S. Military
By: Jim Baer, Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs
Protestors in Lima, Peru demonstrated in March against the anticipated arrival of the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that will spend several days in port at Callao as it returns from Asian and Australian waters, as well as other U.S. military that have arrived to assist Perus military assets with anti-drug activities. Some anti-drug activists, like Raul Ramos, claim that U.S. plans are mainly to maintain U.S. hegemony and its control over our natural resources, as it always pointed out that we are their backyard.[1] Opposition to the increasing presence of U.S. troops in Latin America demonstrates the complicated nature of the war on drug traffickers and of the domestic politics of a number of Latin American countries and the United States.
For more than sixteen years U.S. policy toward drug production and drug trafficking in Latin America has focused on a militarized response. In the late 1990s when Colombian President Andrés Pastrana sought assistance for a strategy to combat the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and its involvement in the growth and production of cocaine, the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton took on the initiative to push for an emphasis on a militarized strategy. Plan Colombia, as it was called, brought increasing amounts of U.S. military aid to the theater. The United States has claimed success, and a United Nations report has shown coca production has been reduced by about 50 percent in Colombia.[2]
Both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations have continued with the basic premise that a military response is necessary when combating drug trafficking, and this had led to some opposition by those who feel that the military approach has brought on increasing violence, ignores many of the other social and political problems, and gives too much power to the military. Despite overwhelming evidence of continued failure to protect human rights the State Department has continued to certify Colombia as fit to receive aid. In effect, the U.S. has continued a policy of throwing fuel on the fire of already widespread human rights violations, collusion with illegal paramilitary groups and near total impunity, states an Amnesty International report.[3]
Faced with increasingly violent and powerful drug cartels operating in Central America and a resurgence of the Peruvian Shining Path guerilla movement that draws continued revenue from drug sales, the U.S. has increased its military presence in Latin America.[font size=3] In the last few years, the U.S. has been ramping up its military operations throughout Latin America in what the AP called the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War.[/font] The buildup has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $20 billion since 2002, for troops, ships, clandestine bases, radar, military and police training and other expenses, wrote Dana Frank in the Los Angeles Times in 2013.[4]
More:
http://www.coha.org/u-s-military-presence-in-latin-america-increasing/
newfie11
(8,159 posts)From country to country America has got to meddle. Our history in SOuth America is horrendous and still we are there!
This needs to stop but I don't ever see that happening.
silverweb
(16,402 posts)n/t
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)in the hands of an oligarch, and not in the hands of the government. The profits of that copper mine belong in the people's hands. That copper is a natural resource. That's usually why we end up in conflicts around the world -- some rich people want to steal some more resources.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Not sure if the OP already linked this, I was just following her (I assume) post to the backing story...
http://www.mining.com/mmgs-gigantic-las-bambas-mine-in-peru-to-open-next-year-despite-protests/
Peru has been the favoured destination for copper investment in recent years.
New mines coming on stream in the country in the following months and 2016 will double production to 2.8 million tonnes, placing the country in second place globally behind Chile.
According to data from the Peruvian Institute of Economics, however, social conflicts and red tape are making that goal difficult, as they have already caused the delay of $21.5 billion worth of mining projects in recent years.
Meanwhile the Apurimac region, near the Las Bambas Project, continues to be under martial law following last month unrest. During such period, civil liberties including freedom of association and movement are restricted, while police are allowed to enter houses without search warrants.
It isn't clear to me if the U.S. military buildup is to wage the war on drugs (her other posts in this thread showed plenty of evidence of that) or the mining interests.
No reason to believe they are mutually exclusive, or that there isn't a broader offensive being waged against rebel forces who don't look favorably on Peru's natural resources being placed on the global market by an alliance of a neoliberal government and multinational corporations. My guess is all of the above, would fit with past history.
Sad to see so little change in these kind of endeavors when we have a Democrat in the White House. I doubt congress drives these activities, though they might have some token oversight via an intel committee. This all seems right up Hillary's alley. I would hope that Bernie might do less of this, he'd have a lot of fronts to fight on though, whether he makes this one of them remains to be seen. It certainly seems more against his nature than Hillary's, for whatever that is worth. Before the '09 inauguration I thought that about Obama too, sadly I think that no more.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)for Obama the second time. It was weary resignation that I felt. All this greed is so out of control, and most people are worried if their team is going to make it in the Super Bowl, so there's not much hope of changing things unless something very different comes along and gives people some hope that the U.S. can have nice things, too. It's a matter of changing priorities and giving government a different focus. Bernie is the only person in the race who is talking about things that thinking Americans have thought a million times. Is empire worth the price? Let's see what people think.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)My state California was safe for Obama so there is that. If Obama hadn't run as a change candidate I would probably have grudgingly voted for him in '08, but he did and I just felt completely lied to. Still do. He's a seemingly decent man who does an ok job of managing a very difficult nation to govern, but he's nothing more than a competent statist, more of a steady hand type manager than a visionary leader.
We finally have an actual change candidate He won't be able to change everything, but he's not deceiving us about who he is and what he will fight for. Electing Bernie would be a great place to start, then work on a Bernami to elect candidates through grassroots campaigns without corporate money.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Cost me an hour of my life reading. Well spent!
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)TBF
(31,922 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)There are big profits to be made!
The Peruvian people don't want all their trees cut down and their waters ruined by gigantic mines. Especially when it mostly serves a few foreign wealthy investors.
How many times has the US interfered in the foreign affairs of another nation for just this reason?
This is why our military should be cut to the bone.
Zorro
(15,691 posts)They remember the decades of deliberate chaos created by Shining Path.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)If it were, we would be inundated with PR.
TBF
(31,922 posts)Peru is our "strategic ally" - you know what that means. They are also part of TPP: "We, the trade ministers of Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam, are pleased to announce that we have successfully concluded the Trans-Pacific Partnership."
Founded in 1967, ECAT is an organization of the heads of leading U.S.-based international business enterprises representing all major sectors of the American economy. Their annual worldwide sales exceed $2.7 trillion and they employ more than 6.5 million persons. ECAT's purpose is to promote economic growth through the expansion of international trade and investment.
95 percent of the world's consumers live outside U.S. border
80 percent of the world's purchasing power is outside the United States.
Nearly 87 percent of world economic growth over the next five years will take place outside of the United States.
20 percent of farm income comes from agricultural exports.
In 2014, the U.S. merchandise trade balance (excluding oil and gas) with trade agreement partner countries was over $94 billion.
EX500rider
(10,532 posts)http://www.hightimes.com/read/us-troops-perus-coca-zone