Cable en el que Per pide a EE UU equipamiento militar

En 2009, la Embajada de Lima informa de que los militares piden equipamiento areo y terrestre, helicpteros, y medios para construir un aeropuerto
11/12/2010

ID: Date: Origin: Source:

236863 2009-11-25 20:48:00 09LIMA1669 Embassy Lima

Classification: CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN Dunno: Destination: VZCZCXYZ0000 RR RUEHWEB DE RUEHPE #1669/01 3292049 ZNY CCCCC ZZH R 252048Z NOV 09 FM AMEMBASSY LIMA TO RHMFISS/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0156 INFO RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 0067 RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS RUEHGE/AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO RUEHPE/AMEMBASSY LIMA RUEHQT/AMEMBASSY QUITO

RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC C O N F I D E N T I A L LIMA 001669 NOFORN SIPDIS SOUTHCOM FOR POLAD E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/11/25 TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PTER, MASS, MOPS, SOCI, PE SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR USSOUTHCOM COMMANDER, GENERAL DOUGLAS M. FRASER CLASSIFIED BY: P. Michael McKinley, Ambassador, State, Executive; REASON: 1.4(A), (B), (D) 1. (C/NF) Summary: Embassy Lima warmly welcomes you to Peru. You will arrive at a time of strong GOP interest in expanding security cooperation with the United States. Under President Alan Garcia, Peru has been a reliable U.S. partner and played a constructive role in a complicated South America characterized by resurgent populism and periodic flashes of tension -- most recently between Colombia and Venezuela. Notwithstanding its recent strong economic growth and falling poverty levels, Peru still faces real security threats, primarily relating to drug trafficking and reemerging Shining Path terrorism. Your visit affords an opportunity to underscore our interest in supporting the GOP's efforts to combat these threats in the several discrete areas where we are best positioned to help. Peruvian sensitivities regarding U.S. Arms Sales to Chile, although overshadowed by allegations of Chilean espionage, remain acute and are likely to figure prominently in your meetings here. End Summary.

Peru: A Good Friend in the Region 2. (C) We have built a strong bilateral relationship with Peru in recent years, partly embodied in the Peru Trade Promotion

Agreement (PTPA). We also share a similar strategic vision, namely that the region's foremost security threats originate from transnational and non-state criminal actors such as narco-traffickers and terrorists, as well as resurgent populism and the meddling of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his allies. At the same time, we have sought to support Peru's efforts to address the underlying causes of these threats -- including persistent (if falling) poverty, corruption and social inequality -- and to spread the benefits of economic development more widely. We have also sought to support Peru's plan to reorient its security posture away from its perceived conventional threats from its neighbors (mainly Chile) and to modernize its military's doctrines and retool its operational capabilities to confront its internal threats. The GOP sees the U.S. as an ally and has asked for our help. Despite our broadly shared interests, however, domestic and regional sensitivities about a too close military-security embrace with the United States persist.

3. (C) The GOP has played a constructive role in the region and sees challenges and opportunities through a similar policy prism. Under Garcia, Peru has helped to counter Bolivia and Venezuela's efforts to blame the U.S. for rising regional tensions. In the recent UNASUR President's meeting in Bariloche, for example, Garcia vigorously defended Colombia's sovereign right to work formally with the U.S. in combating drug trafficking and terrorism by means of the Defense Cooperation Agreement ( DCA). Peru was active in helping defuse the Colombia-Ecuador crisis in March 2008, and continues to seek to help repair and restore relations between those two countries. (Note: Colombian Embassy officials here have told us that Peru is Colombia's "only ally" in the region." End Note.) President Garcia's recent "Peace and Security Cooperation" initiative appears to be a serious attempt to promote regional stability and contain defense costs at a time of global economic recession. Garcia's proposals seek to prevent an arms race in the region, reduce military expenditures, formalize a non-aggression pact and field a regional defense force ("Fuerza Sudamericana de Paz e Intervencion").

4. (C) Peru's relations with Chile have been rocky following Peru's decision to take its maritime border dispute with Chile to the International Court of Justice in early 2008. Ties soured further following Peruvian complaints over Chile's "Salitre 2009" war games and have grown even tenser in the wake of allegations of Chilean spying. Relations with Bolivia have also been strained over alleged Bolivian political meddling, and personal insults between Presidents Garcia and Morales. The GOP remains concerned that Venezuela is trying to sow instability in the region through its covert support of radical and indigenous groups in Peru and elsewhere. Peru's robust engagement with (its former enemy) Ecuador represents its greatest diplomatic success to date, which MFA officials have told us is their "number one" foreign policy objective. Peru has signed onto Brazil's UNASUR South American integration plan and it desires a "strategic relationship" with Brazil, focused on integrating infrastructure such as the new inter-oceanic highways and investment. While it has respectful relations with other countries in the region, Peru feels a special kinship with Colombia for their similar drug trafficking and terrorism challenges and their shared view that free trade and openness to investment are the best way to foment economic growth and advance national development.

Peru's Security Challenges and Threats 5. (C) Notwithstanding its recent strong economic growth and generally falling poverty levels, Peru faces a series of largely internal security challenges that could threaten its stability and continued progress. Social conflict is one, and the June 5 violence in the northern Amazon city of Bagua in which 24 policemen and 10 civilians were killed was the government's most serious crisis to date. While a series of government miscalculations and missteps was largely to blame, radical and possibly foreign interference also played a role. That said, Peruvian military officials are likely to focus their discussions with you on the

security challenges connected with drug trafficking and terrorism. GOP briefings to U.S. officials tend to downplay or omit perceived external threats to Peru such as Chile or Bolivia, but military planning, doctrine, force structure and spending remain (in our view) disproportionately focused on such threats.

6. (C/NF) Many analysts believe that SL, and its expanding connections with drug trafficking, is Peru's primary security threat - particularly in the VRAE. While there is continuing debate about whether SL has abandoned its ideological struggle and become just another narco-trafficking group, or rather adapted its approach to the historical realities of the day while maintaining its essentially political goals, the fact is that we know little about its true intentions. Peru's own intelligence apparatus, in disrepair since the collapse of the Fujimori regime, has only recently begun to rebuild its capabilities. What is known is that the SL threat was contained but not eliminated and may now again be expanding. Over the past 18 months, terrorists have killed over 50 security forces, mostly in ambushes on isolated military patrols but in some cases in direct assaults on provisional military bases established as part of a targeted military operation in the heart of SL terrain. Additionally, SL members have conducted civic actions to gain the sympathy of local people and communities that have been largely abandoned by the state.

Where the U.S. Can Help 7. (C/NF) Your visit affords an opportunity to underscore USG interest in supporting the GOP's efforts to combat these threats in the several discrete areas where we are best positioned to help. The key word, however, is "supporting." In this context, the GOP needs to develop a more effective political/military strategy for turning the tide against a reemerging SL increasingly intertwined with drug trafficking. We can help the GOP to fine-tune its plans, but government leaders must demonstrate the political will by committing funds, setting goals and benchmarks, and decisively

moving forward on implementation. There have been some encouraging signs in this respect. 8. (C/NF) If an effective counternarcotics campaign and broader development objectives in the VRAE presuppose security, the most critical security need in the VRAE is for improved intelligence. In this connection, the GOP is seeking to rebuild its human collection capabilities. They also seek help in the area of electronic intelligence, particularly to see from above the dense jungle canopy. To seize the initiative and carry the fight to the SL, Peru's Armed Forces also seek support in training, equipment and transport. After extensive discussions at all levels, the GOP may ask for the USG to assist it in the three following areas:

--- Help improve Peru's intelligence capabilities by providing FLIR, UAVs, and satellite imagery;

--- Replace, replenish or repair their moribund helicopter fleet and;

--- Support the construction of a fixed-wing airfield in Pichari and supply equipment and training, including on countering SL's increased use of home-made IEDs, mines and booby traps.

While Peru's security forces have welcomed a broad USG-led ("Tiger Team") security review of their existing capabilities and threats, you should be prepared to discuss our ability to support, in these several discrete ways, Peruvian efforts to confront its real and immediate internal security threats in the VRAE.

Tensions with Chile: Distracting the Focus

9. (C/NF) Peruvian sensitivities regarding U.S. Arms sales to Chile remain acute. The announced prospective U.S. sale to Chile of a Sentinel Radar system, a land to air defensive platform (Avenger) with stinger missiles, and 100 AMRAAM missiles to equip the 18 F-16s Chile recently purchased from Holland caused rankles in Peru, particularly as the government was then actively and very publicly promoting its "Peace And Disarmament" initiative with leaders around the region. That announcement has been overshadowed by allegations that a Peruvian Air Force NCO had been spying on Chile's behalf for the past 5 years - allegations that have dominated Peru's media for the past 10 days and sent its relations with Chile into a tailspin. Still, the U.S. arms sales are present in the minds of Peruvian political and military leaders, as tilting the military balance even more decisively in favor of Chile, and are likely to figure prominently in your meetings here. MCKINLEY