Among the biggest news stories at the end of 2005 was the Bush administration's use of the National Security Agency to carry out domestic spying operations in the name of the war on terrorism, an apparent violation of the 1978 law that calls for court warrants to carry out wire taps of suspected criminals within the United States.

These controversial revelations overshadowed an NBC report about a military database on U.S. civilians who were deemed possible threats to national security interests, U.S. forces, or military installations, a report the Pentagon later acknowledged. According to a Pentagon spokesperson quoted in Agence France Press in December, the database, known as the Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) reporting system, is made up of unverified reports of what are described as suspicious activities filed by "concerned citizens," as well as by law enforcement, intelligence, security, and counterintelligence organizations. Among the suspicious activities monitored was a gathering at a Quaker's meeting house, where peace activists were planning for an anti-war rally in Philadelphia.

The role of the Pentagon in domestic surveillance and civilian law enforcement functions should come as no surprise to popular social organizations in Latin America, who in recent years have been targeted by U.S.-backed military and police officials. In 2004 Amnesty International raised alarm about the Pentagon's description of anti-free trade mobilizations by indigenous organizations in Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia as "emerging threats" to regional security. And now, a number of Washington-based foreign policy and military research analysts are calling attention to the merging of civilian and military functions in domestic security throughout the region.

A new report "Erasing the Lines: Trends in U.S. Military Programs in Latin America," was published last month by the Washington Office on Latin America, the Latin America Working Group, and the Center for International Policy. Among other things, it describes how the Defense Department is expanding its control over foreign military training programs that were once the exclusive purview of the State Department.

According to the report, the Counter-terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP), begun after September 11th, "has become one of the most significant sources of training funds worldwide and the fourth-largest source in Latin America, training over 1,000 troops from the region in 2004." Overall, the Defense budget funded 57% of all Latin Americans who received training at U.S. expense.

"As a result, there is less congressional oversight, and a gradual weakening of the relationship between military assistance and foreign policy goals," said Joy Olson, one of the authors of the report and executive director of the Washington Office on Latin America. Perhaps more alarming, since 2001, throughout the region, the U.S. government has encouraged military involvement in new "internal missions"-including policing functions-by accompanying a regional realignment of military roles in response to "emerging" threats."

Some of those "threats" include coca growers in Bolivia, indigenous organizations in Ecuador and Colombia, supporters of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and the Landless Peasant Movement in Brazil, all of whom are directly challenging neo-liberal economic policies promoted by the White House.

These are manifestations of what a growing number of U.S. policymakers have described as "radical populist" movements that seek to "roll back the democratic progress of the past two decades." Hugo Chavez is of greatest concern, now followed closely by the first indigenous president of any Latin American country, Evo Morales of Bolivia, who has made no secret of his disdain for U.S. structural adjustment and military interventionist policies.

"It would be foolish for the U.S. to view these movements as threats worthy of increased or re-tooled military assistance. These examples are homegrown movements that reflect popular disenchantment with elected government institutions, seen by many as subservient to Washington's, not their interest," said Olson of WOLA.

For decades, brutal military dictatorships and authoritarian regimes supported by Washington used "national security" reasons to target legitimate, popular protest, leading to unprecedented waves of repression in the region. In the 1990s, with some alarming exceptions like Fujimori's Peru and Gaviria's Colombia, the lines separating military and civilian policing roles were slowly being drawn in many countries of Central and South America. This was seen as a small advance for democratic institutions, and paved the way for some gains in progressive sectors.

In Colombia, we can clearly see the direct link between U.S. military assistance and training, and attacks on popular sectors. The indigenous movement in Cauca, the heart of popular resistance to the Free Trade Area of the Americas accord being hammered out with Washington, has felt the impact over the last 12 months of a stepped up military presence throughout indigenous territory. The Colombian government argues it is part of their campaign to weed out the guerillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, who have operated in the region for years with relative impunity. But the indigenous leadership rejects that argument, describing the state military presence as a direct assault on their popular organizing against neo-liberal policies.

"The same people who have opposed indigenous self-government for decades denounced the FARC's violation of our autonomy and said we should bring in the army to protect us, to bring us democratic security," said Domingo Caldon, a Kokonuco Indian and representative of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, ONIC.

Unfortunately, in the post-9/11 world, as we see with the domestic spying scandal in the U.S. and the attacks on popular organizations in Latin America, these lines separating military and civilian functions are once again in danger of being erased throughout the continent. While no one would argue against more security, recent trends show it could be used to justify military responses to profound social and economic problems, ones that clearly do not warrant military solutions.

Mario A. Murillo is a professor of communication at Hofstra University and host of Wake Up Call on Pacifica Radio's New York station WBAI 99.5 FM. He is author of Colombia and the United States: War, Unrest and Destabilization (Seven Stories Press, 2004).  

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