LATIN AMERICAN POLICE GET SOME POINTERS FROM WASHINGTON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100200003-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: February 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/02 :CIA-RDP9O-01208
Ak71Ci.E APP
ON PAGE -~-
NEW YORK TIMES
16 February 1986
~~,atin American Police Get Some
Pointers From Washington.
>!qr JAMES LsMOYNE
SAN SALVADOR - Concern about human rlghts
abuses by tot~slpt police far+oss m the IY7b'a pramptad
~angr~ess to prohiWt united sate. framing for sudt or-
ganizaaaw. Conptias later made soma eacapaeas for
? prop'aass to combat terrorism, cad the Rea~aa Adminis-
,tration seems Intent oa mating the mat o~ thsm_ "Our
sppport far damocraac development m Lean America
must be highlighted by our support to oo~mtertsrror-
ism," James H. Midw1, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of
"state. said m Navembsr.
The Adaoiniacrauon V
re ve
were serf to ve ed 1
n or training. tt-e Amomntstratian says
rebeb dsterttttt~ed to nndermirte fragile elected govero-
marts. Americsirt Otfldab concede tbtt matry of fife Cea-
tral American security forces have unsavory records.
$ut. they argue. it V m the interest of the United States to
try to improve their per[ormance, even it Americans
dirty their hands to do so. So the Admiabtraaan has
' asked Congress for i64 miWon for camterterrorism aid
:.tor every Central American country acept Nicaragua.
with El Salvador scheduled to receive amwat half the
. 'money. "At a time when the guerillas are returning to
the cities, it is Idiocy not to be tnmirtg the police here." a
`'senior Western diplomat said m El Salvador.
Human rights advocates vigomttsly oppose the re-
'quest, arguing that. iii Central America, pdiw and army
units have killed and tortured tens of tlrotsraads of dvil-
tans in recent yeatsr:Thsy insist thtt the Udted States
does dot have the ability to change the methods of these
police forces and thus should twt assist them. "The
UNted States has a lot to lone by training police," said
Aryeh Neier, vios?cliairman of America's Watch. a New
York-based human rights group. "We only train.
police when governments have demoastrat the will to
control them. which they haven't in Central ^,tnerica.'
From 1982 to 1974, the United States Agency for In-
ternational Development trained thousands of police otti-
cials. Congress ended the training after accusations of
C.I.A. invo vemen a
Do semen were rntSnonsible for torture and kill-
ngs. note .Pat M.
Holt, who investigated these durges as an aide of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the early 1870'x,
said in a recent telephone interview that he had been un-
able to substantiate the accusations but had found that
they were widely accepted in Latin America as ttve.
There was evidence that police forces were abusive. The
public belief that Americans were involved, even if un-
true. was. highly damaging to the United states. Mr. Holt
contends. "We transferred a lot of equipment and train-
ing to police forces in Latin America with tw judidal re-
straint," be said. "That carried a very high political
price for m because we were associated with police who
had a record of brutality and cruelty."
Prisoner Complaints
Reagan Administration otticials say their new train-
ingprogram will aim to stop human rights abuses by pro-
tessionalizing the police. That could be a lengthy and
complicated task in a region where only the Caste Rican .
police can claim a relatively irreproachable record.
In Guatem la
have un r an der acs thousands o civilians
in recent ears ? torture is a va or's se-
curity orces eve s own improvement, but released
prisoners still complain they have been deprived of sleep
and that their families have been threatened. In addition,
military officers identified by American diplomats as re-
sponsible for past abuses have not been punished and
been promoted, although two enlisted men wen con-
victed last week in the 1981 killing of two American Iand-
reform experts and a Salvadoran wlleague.
The police and army in Honduras have a better
record, but they are nevertheless strongly suspected of '
involvement in the killing and disappearance of 200 or
more leftists. In Panama, the public security forces have
deposed the last three presidents, and they are believed
to have recently beheaded a leading opposition politician
and to be deeply involved in cocaine trafficking.
Nevertheless, Congress seems disposed to consider
favorably further assistance for police training in Cen-
tral Atgerica, several Congressional aides say. But, they
add, tide program is likely to be heatedly debated.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/03/02 :CIA-RDP9O-012088000100200003-8