Pubdate: Fri, 14 Oct 2005
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2005 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Juan O. Tamayo

LEADERS CONTEMPLATE MULTINATIONAL FORCE

Donald Rumsfeld And Regional Leaders Agreed On Cooperation, But 
Differed On The Role Of A Proposed Multinational Battalion

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday said he and his 
Central American counterparts had "useful" talks on security 
cooperation at a Key Biscayne gathering, but his guests questioned a 
proposal for a multinational battalion.

Honduras has strongly pushed the battalion idea, arguing that it's 
needed to tackle regional issues from major natural disasters and 
peacekeeping duties to violent street gangs and smuggling of drugs, 
migrants and weapons.

The Pentagon backs regional military cooperation, arguing that 
improved security helps political and economic stability. But some 
U.S. officials have privately questioned the wisdom of pushing the 
region's militaries, often with long histories of human rights 
abuses, to become involved in law enforcement work like fighting the gangs.

Winding up the closed-door, two-day conference in Key Biscayne, 
Rumsfeld told a news conference that the meetings with his 
counterparts from Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El 
Salvador, Guatemala and Belize achieved "useful progress toward 
increasing cooperation."

Most of the ministers agreed to recommend to their home governments 
increased coordination in areas like intelligence sharing, 
operational procedures and deployments for natural disasters such as 
the recent rains that claimed some 1,000 lives in Guatemala alone, 
said participants who asked for anonymity because they were not 
authorized to comment.

The ministers also had few reservations on a proposal to create a 
multinational battalion for peacekeeping duty. Guatemala offered to 
host a training base for such a unit.

Honduran Defense Minister Federico Breve insisted that a 
multinational battalion -- usually 700 to 900 members -- is needed to 
fight the maras, gangs that he said are increasingly obtaining 
weapons from drug smugglers.

"The maras are a serious threat," Breve told the news conference, and 
the multinational unit could "to frontally attack this problem."

But several of the other ministers questioned such a use of the battalion.

"The armed forces of our countries do not have the legal powers for 
the capture or interdiction of gangs or people linked to the drug 
traffic," said Nicaraguan Defense Minister Avil Ramirez.

Other participants had said earlier that their countries' 
constitutions might not allow them to deploy military forces abroad.

Asked about long-standing U.S. concerns about Nicaragua's safekeeping 
of some 1,000 portable antiaircraft missiles, Rumsfeld said that 
"progress has been made" in his side meetings with Ramirez.

"They have in every way possible guaranteed the security" of the 
missiles, Rumsfeld said. "And that is, from our standpoint, 
encouraging." Washington regards the shoulder-fired missiles as 
potential terrorist weapons.

Nicaragua had promised to destroy all its Soviet-era missiles, but 
stopped the process amid a paralyzing political crisis that nearly 
toppled President Enrique Bolanos. The president earlier this week 
announced a political deal with his main enemy to end the crisis.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman